The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 2

Percy Bysshe Shelley was twenty-nine years old when he drowned in a sailing accident off the coast of Italy. In his brief life, he wrote some of the most radical, beautiful, and terrifying poetry in the English language. This volume gathers his major long works: 'Queen Mab,' a visionary tour through a future where humanity has transcended war and suffering; 'The Cenci,' a ferocious tragedy about a family destroyed by a monstrous father; 'Alastor,' the haunting story of a young poet who dissolves into his own dreams; and 'Prometheus Unbound,' his masterpiece, a lyrical drama about the triumph of hope over tyranny. Shelley believed poetry could remake the world. He was expelled from Oxford for publishing an atheist pamphlet. His wife drowned herself in a river, and his verses were burned in the streets of London. Yet his faith in love, in imagination, in the possibility of human goodness never wavered. These poems pulse with that faith, with a lyricism so intense it still feels dangerous, with a beauty that aches. Two centuries later, Shelley remains the poet for anyone who believes the world should be otherwise.