I have a treat in store for members of the Shelley Nation. Michael Demson’s book, Masks of Anarchy tells the story of two political radicals and the poem that brought them together: Percy Shelley and the early 20th Century union organizer he inspired, Pauline Newman. Demson, in collaboration with illustrator Summer McClinton, accomplishes this through an unusual medium: a radical comic. This gets my RPBS "Stamp of Champ, You Must Read This" recommendation! You can get the eBook for about $14 CDN and the paperback for $8. This is an unbelievable bargain. Just DO IT!
Shelley: Poet and Revolutionary by Jacqueline Mulhallen
I have been meaning to recommend Percy Bysshe Shelley Poet and Revolutionary by Jacqueline Mulhallen to the Shelley Nation for a long, long time. I kept putting it off because I wanted to do the book full justice - I think it is THAT important. I can put it off no longer. Connecting modern audiences with Shelley's radical politics and philosophy is actually urgent. As no less a person than Nicholas Roe (Professor of English Literature at the University of St Andrews) says: Mulhallen's book is "Fresh, clear and compelling, this is the best compact account of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s revolutionary life currently available."
Shelley's Musical Muse
Shelley and the Musico-Poetics of Romanticism explores Shelley’s near lifelong fascination with music and the role it played in the creation of his poetry and his theory of the imagination. As an independent scholar anxious to bring Shelley to the attention of a larger audience, books such as this are an important tool because they can connect Shelley to people who come from very divergent walks of life.