Shelley's Vegetarianism
LC Class PR5431 .A98 1971 | | |
Text | Shelley's Vegetarianism at Wikisource |
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Shelley's Vegetarianism is a 1891 pamphlet on the vegetarianism of Percy Bysshe Shelley by William Axon, published by the Vegetarian Society. It is a printing of a lecture delivered by Axon before the Shelley Society, at University College in 1890.
Background
Percy Bysshe Shelley was an English Romantic poet who wrote several essays on the subject of vegetarianism and animal rights, including the 1813 book,
In 1887, Axon published an article on Shelley's vegetarian aspects of living, for the fifth issue of Almonds and Raisins, along with an essay on vegetarianism in Buddhism, and several short poems. In this article, it is noted that Shelley's diet was "in keeping with his whole character, and essential to his imaginative style of writing."
The Meeting at University College
Axon read "Shelley's Vegetarianism" before the members of the Shelley Society, at University College, on Gower Street in London, at 8 P.M., Wednesday November 12, 1890.[6] The meeting was promoted as being open to visitors, and discussion, following the lecture was invited for all who attended.[5][7]
On the chair at the meeting was Henry S. Salt. Also attending the meeting was Scottish author and publisher Alexander Hay Japp, English philologist Frederick James Furnivall, along with Jane Ann Heavisides Simpson, James Burns, and Mrs. McDonel, who each took part in the discussion after the lecture, as well as several other unnamed people.[8] Remarks from Salt regarding the lecture, where that during his life in London, Bracknell, and Marlow, the poet Shelley continued to be in the main an abstainer from flesh-meat, his views on the humanities, and the hygienics of diet, which were printed in the November 22, 1890 edition of The Academy. He concludes his notes from the lecture by reiterating Axon, in that Shelley's diet "was not a mere dietetic whim, but an endeavour after a higher and better life for mankind, an attempt to bring the universe into sympathetic harmony, and to provide a bounteous feast from which none should be excluded."[8][9]
It was subsequently published in pamphlet form the following year.
Publication
The 15 x 22 centimeter sewed pamphlet was covered in paper wrapping, and was published and circulated the year following Axon's lecture to the Shelley Society, by the Vegetarian Society, at 75 Princess Street, Manchester.
Within a few decades, Shelley's Vegetarianism had been entered into several libraries, including in England, the Worcester Public Library, the Public Library of Boston, and the Harvard Library in the United States, as well as several in Germany, and others throughout Europe. It also appeared in several private libraries including bibliographer and bookseller Harry Buxton Forman, who owned two copies, and Polish typographer Samuel Tyszkiewicz.[16][17]
By 1922, the pamphlet was being sold for 50 cents per issue.[13]
A copy, signed by English writer, critic, and fellow Shelley Society member William Michael Rossetti, was for sale in 1939 at the former printing house and antiquarian bookshop in London, Sotheran's, for 15 shillings.[18]
At the following meeting, Rossetti read an essay on "The Shelleys Near Geneva; Dr. Polidori's Diary."[10] A notable facsimile reprint was made by Haskell House, in 1971, which was 16 pages in total length, in a demy octavo collation, and selling for nearly six dollars two years after this publication.[19][20] Between 1890 and 2010, approximately 20 editions of this pamphlet have been published, with it being held at 147 libraries worldwide.[21]
Shelley's Vegetarianism is described as containing a "compendium of citations" from Shelley's prose and poems.[22] It is cited in many publications, such as the work Anglia: Zeitschrift für englische Philologie, which uses the pamphlet to reflect on Shelley's sometimes wavering adherence to the natural diet throughout the later years of his life, as well as referencing the inscription on his grave, which was a line from William Shakespeare's play The Tempest.[23][24][25]
Content
On the inside of the cover is the Vegetarian Society's definition of vegetarianism, which reads "the practice of living on the products of the Vegetable kingdom, with or without the addition of Eggs and Milk and its products (butter and cheese), to the exclusion of Fish, Flesh, and Fowl."[26][27] Adjacent to this page is the opening to Shelley's Vegetarianism, which looks at the origin of the word "vegetarian", which did not exist until a quarter of a century after Shelley's death, before being referred to as a "natural diet," "vegetable regimen," or the "Pythagorean system."[8]
It then divulges into the early years of his life, and his dietetic influences from English poet and politician Lord Byron and the Vegetarians "with whom he lived intimately at London and Bracknell," which formed his "instinctive" dietetic simplicity.[28][8] Much of the pamphlet focuses on the time that the Shelleys spent in the village of Marlow, Buckinghamsire, along with their close friend, novelist Thomas Love Peacock, whose home they shared. During this period, Shelley practiced occasional regiments of starvation. It also recounts his hygiene, and his fondness for physical exercise, and even strenuous exertion. Axon cites Irish critic and poet Edward Dowden's Life, noting that "it was, indeed, a point of honour with Shelley to prove that some grit lay under his outward appearance of weakness and excitable nerves; for he was an apostle of the Vegetarian faith, and a water drinker, and must not discredit the doctrine which he preached and practised."[29]
Axon also gives an account of Shelley's belief that with vegetarianism comes a wholesome society.
The pamphlet also contains excerpts from several of Shelley's poems, including "Letter to Maria Gisborne," "Alastor," "Sensitive Plant," and "Laon and Cyntha," which would come to be known as "The Revolt of Islam." It also contains portions of the poems "The Eve of St. Agnes" by English Romantic poet John Keats, and "The City of our Dreams" by Felix Adler.[8] Two pages of works published by the Vegetarian Society appear at the end of the work, listed by series. At the end of the Shelley's Vegetarianism is a page of the members of the Society, along with its aims, subscription directions, and an advertisement for the Vegetarian Messenger located on the opposite page.
Reviews
Romanticism and the Materiality of Nature describes it as "another late-nineteenth century encomium of Shelley's vegetarianism."[33] Romantic literature and culture site Romantic Circles notes that Shelley's Vegetarianism contains "very little discussion," adding that it is "enlightening for those who did not know about this aspect of Shelley, but adding very little to the historical understanding of a familiar reader." It concludes with writing "it is the kind of book that can be replaced by studies which examine the same passages in far more detail: readers of Morton's recent book are well beyond needing Axon."[22]
References
Citations
- ^ Li 2019, p. 289.
- ^ Axon 1891, p. 16.
- ^ The Nation Staff 1887, p. 77.
- ^ Alcott 1999, p. 92.
- ^ a b The Freethinker Staff 1890, p. 535.
- ^ Bulletin and Review Staff 1913, p. 147.
- ^ Peck 1924, p. 313–314.
- ^ a b c d e The Academy Staff 1890, p. 482.
- ^ Shiraishi 2019, p. 37–38.
- ^ a b Peck 1924, p. 314.
- ^ Gregory 2007, p. 260.
- ^ The Guardian Staff 1905, p. 8.
- ^ a b Brick Row Book Shop Staff 1922, p. 17.
- ^ Rossetti & Peattie 1990, p. 520.
- ^ Bernard Quaritch Staff 1908, p. 18.
- ^ The Private Library Staff 1979, p. 46.
- ^ Forman 1920, p. 103.
- ^ Sotheran's Staff 1939, p. 57.
- ^ Wise 1971, p. 144.
- ^ The Publishers' Trade List Annual Staff 1973, p. 1.
- ^ Worldcat Staff 2020.
- ^ a b Stroup 2001.
- ^ Puskar-Pasewicz 2003, p. 176.
- ^ Shiraishi 2019, p. 197.
- ^ Niemeyer 1894, p. 204–205.
- ^ St. Andrew's Special Collections Staff 2014.
- ^ Axon 1891, p. 1.
- ^ Axon 1891, p. 2.
- ^ Axon 1891, p. 4–7.
- ^ Shiraishi 2019, p. 6.
- ^ Axon 1891, p. 7–8.
- ^ Niemeyer 1894, p. 204.
- ^ Oerlemans 2004, p. 221.
Sources
- The Academy Staff (1890), "Meetings of Society", The Academy, vol. 38, Academy Publishing Company, OCLC 559046892
- ISBN 9780712345712
- OCLC 557574532 – via Wikisource.
- Bernard Quaritch Staff (1908), "Catalogue No. 261", Bernard Quaritch Catalogue, Issues 261-263, Bernard Quaritch Limited, OCLC 555643060
- Brick Row Book Shop Staff (1922), A Catalogue of Original Works By, and of Books Relating to Percy Bysshe Shelley, Brick Row Book Shop Incorporated, OCLC 223563257
- Bulletin and Review Staff (1913), "Works Relating to Keats, Shelley, Byron and Hunt", Bulletin and Review of the Keats-Shelley Memorial, Rome, no. 2, Macmillan, OCLC 31852535
- The Freethinker Staff (1890), "Sugar Plums", The Freethinker, vol. 10, G. W. Foote
- Forman, Harry Buxton (1920), The Library of the Late H. Buxton Forman, vol. 1, Anderson Galleries
- Gregory, James (2007), Of Victorians and Vegetarians: The Vegetarian Movement in Nineteenth-Century Britain, I.B. Tauris, ISBN 9781845113797
- The Guardian Staff (17 October 1905), "Nature and the Force of Habit", The Guardian
- Li, Chien-Hui (25 June 2019), Mobilizing Traditions in the First Wave of the British Animal Defense Movement, Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 9781137526502
- Library of Congress (1964), "Axon", The National Union Catalogs, 1963, vol. 6
- The Nation Staff (1887), "Notes", The Nation, vol. 44, J.H. Richards
- Niemeyer, N. (1894), Beiblatt zur Anglia: Mitteilungen über englische Sprache und Literatur und über englischen Unterricht (in German)
- Oerlemans, Onno (1 January 2004), "Notes", Romanticism and the Materiality of Nature, University of Toronto Press, ISBN 9780802086976, retrieved 23 March 2020
- Peck, Walter Edwin (1924), "On the Origin of the Shelley Society", Modern Language Notes, Johns Hopkins Press
- The Private Library Staff (1979), The Private Library, Private Libraries Association
- The Publishers' Trade List Annual Staff (1973), The Publishers' Trade List Annual, vol. 4, R. R. Bowker Company, OCLC 1697033
- Puskar-Pasewicz, Margaret (2003), "For the good of the whole": vegetarianism in 19th-century America, OCLC 55653719, retrieved 6 March 2020
- ISBN 9780271006789
- St. Andrew's Special Collections Staff (29 May 2014), 52 Weeks of Historical How-To's, Week 31: Vegetarian Hotch-Potch, University of St Andrews
- Shiraishi, Harue (25 September 2019), Negative Idealism of Percy Bysshe Shelley: His Self-Revisionism toward "The Triumph of Life" (PDF), Hokkaido University
- Sotheran's Staff (1939), "Printed on Vellum", Sotheran's Price Current of Literature, Henry Sotheran Ltd.
- Stroup, William (2001), "Henry Salt on Shelley: Literary Criticism and Ecological Identity", Romantic Circles
- Wise, Thomas James (1971), A Shelley Library, Haskell House Publishers, OCLC 269957211
- Worldcat Staff (2020), Most widely held works by William E. A Axon, WorldCat
External links
- Media related to Shelley's Vegetarianism at Wikimedia Commons
- Shelley's Vegetarianism in libraries (WorldCat catalog)