"After Shelley's death in the Gulf of Spezia in July 1822 Mary Shelley (then aged 25) stayed on in Italy for a year before returning to London with her son Percy. Posthumous poems, edited from manuscript, was the initial step in the work of publicizing Shelley's poetry that was to occupy her for the next fifteen years. It contains the first publication of much of the work of the last period of his life, including Julian and Maddalo (the philosophical Shelley/Byron eclogue) and his last poem, The triumph of life. It also includes many short pieces (often expressions of his fraught emotional life) and translations of classical and modern literature. In publishing his own poetry Shelley had tended to print major works, either on their own, or supported by lesser poems; Posthumous poems takes a more comprehensive view. Readers could begin to gauge the true range and value of his work. Sir Timothy Shelley intervened, however; Posthumous poems was suppressed. Of the 500 copies printed, 191 were destroyed."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved