The Keats-Shelley Association of America Blog

Our blog features a range of posts on the topic of Romanticism, including commentary on current news items; dispatches of official K-SAA business and descriptions of our initiatives; calls for contributions; event notices; publication announcements, and more.

We want to hear from K-SAA members and followers! Do you have an idea for a blog post? If so, please view our Call for Submissions or contact The Communications Team.

NYPL acquires rare “Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire,” P.B. Shelley’s first book of verse

Elizabeth Denliger, curator of the Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle at the New York Public Library, has announced the acquisition of Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire (1810), the first book of verse published by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Known to exist in only three other copies worldwide. Denliger calls it "a black tulip, one of the rarest items in the Shelleyan world." Co-authored with his sister Elizabeth, Original Poetry, says Denliger, is evidence of "Shelley's early and powerful urge to publish" and his "inclination to literary collaboration."

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John Keats’s Early Poems, 1814-1817

In order to mark the bicentenary of the composition of ‘Imitation of Spenser’ (1814), John Keats’s earliest known poem, the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association and the Keats Foundation are jointly hosting a day academic seminar on 31 October, Keats’s birthday, at the Keats-Shelley House in Rome.

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Mary Shelley letters unearthed

BBC news has reported the discovery of a small cache of previously unknown letters by Mary Shelley. The find came while Professor Nora Crook of Anglia Ruskin University was researching the holdings of a public records office in Essex, UK. The discovery of the letters, addressed to Horace Smith and his daughter Eliza, was quite by accident, according to Crook. The full article is available here.

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Staged Reading of Prometheus Unbound the First Since 1998, Reviewed by Suzanne L. Barnett

On November 18, 2013 at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in the West Village, Revelation Readings, in conjunction with Red Bull Theater and the Romanticist Research Group of New York University, presented the first staged reading of Percy Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound since 1998. The performance was followed by an informal Q&A with the director, Craig Baldwin, Red Bull artistic director Jesse Berger, Randie Sessler and Omar F. Miranda from the NYU Department of English, and several exhausted cast members who generously remained after the show to discuss the project with the audience. A sold-out crowd of approximately three hundred—apparently comprising both Shelley enthusiasts and theater fans—enjoyed a lively and nuanced performance that was especially impressive given that the cast had only a single rehearsal that same afternoon.

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It’s Alive! Shelley-Godwin Archive Launched

The Shelley-Godwin Archive, launched on October 31, is now live. The new digital resource comprises the manuscripts of Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.  For the first time ever, the widely scattered manuscripts of England’s “first family of writers” are being brought together in digital form online for worldwide use. Visit the site at www.shelleygodwinarchive.org.

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It’s alive! Shelley-Godwin Archive to launch 10/31

The Shelley-Godwin Archive will have its public launch at the New York Public Library on Halloween, Thursday 31 October, 2013, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the Margaret Berger Forum, Room 227. Neil Fraistat and David Brookshire from the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities will describe the creation of the Archive's first transcribed and encoded manuscript, the Bodleian Library's Frankenstein notebooks of Mary Shelley. Liz Denlinger of the Pforzheimer Collection will give a brief overview of the Archive's generation and birth. Charles Robinson of the University of Delaware will give a more extended talk on the composition of the novel, with illustrations from the Archive.

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The Blog and the K-SAA Twitter are curated and managed by The Communications Team. We are a group of early-career scholars seeking to support and make vital the work of emerging voices within and without academia. Click here to see profiles of current and previous team members.