Prometheus Unbound: A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts, with Other Poems

The later works of the radical and visionary Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) include some of his boldest productions, such as the large-scale verse dramas Prometheus Unbound and The Cenci, the miniatures ‘Ode to a Skylark’ and ‘Ode to the West Wind’, and the sonnet ‘Ozymandias’. All have taken their place among the classics of English literature. This one-volume collection contains four editions which were originally published during the poet’s lifetime and which feature his prefaces. These are Prometheus Unbound with Other Poems (1820); Hellas: A Lyrical Drama (1822), which also includes ‘Lines Written on Hearing the News of the Death of Napoleon’; The Cenci: A Tragedy in Five Acts (second edition, 1821); and Rosalind and Helen: A Modern Eclogue with Other Poems (1819). The fifth and final component is Posthumous Poems (1824), with a preface by Mary Shelley, the poet’s second wife.