Typical Visionary

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Featuring some of Shelley's greatest poetry this stunning new edition is illustrated by a selection of the world's most beautiful works of art. Carefully researched and reproduced, the paintings... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1860193978
• ISBN13: 9781860193972
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Chelsea House Publications
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Richly Illustrated - Attractive Gift for Readers of Poetry

In his short life (1792-1822) Percy Bysshe Shelley created a wide range of poetry marked by eloquence, sensuality, and imagination. This small book, Shelley - Lyrical Visionary, offers a small, well-selected sampling of some 20 shorter poems and extracts from eight longer poems. There are no footnotes. Example shorter poems include Lines Written on Hearing the News of the Death of Napoleon, A Summer-Evening Churchyard, To Wordsworth, Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, To the Lord Chancellor, Ozymandias, The Woodman and the Nightingale, Ode to The Westwind, Autumn, and Ode to Liberty. The eight extracts come from Queen Mab, The Revolt of Islam, Prometheus Unbound, The Cloud, To a Skylark, Adonais, Epipschydion, and Sonnets from the Greek of Moschus. What distinguishes this anthology, Shelley - Lyrical Visionary, is the accompanying rich illustrations that complement and enhance the individual poems. The reproductions are high quality and printed on glossy white and tinted pages. This book, as does others in this Illustrated Poetry Anthology series, makes an ideal gift. (The list price is too expensive. I have found these books at much lower prices.) Consideration: This particular volume may be more suitable for readers already familiar with the English Romantics. In my experience Shelley's lyrics are not as immediately accessible as the poetry of Keats, Wordsworth, Byron, and Coleridge, and may even be intimidating. As an alternative, I recommend another book in this series: Keats - Truth and Imagination. (I am biased; Keats is my favorite poet, but I do believe that the poetry of Keats is somewhat easier for many readers.)