Mathilda is being publishedin paper as Extra Series #3of Studies in Philology.
This volume prints for the first time the full text of Mary Shelley’snovelette Mathilda together with the opening pages of its roughdraft, The Fields of Fancy. They are transcribed from the microfilmof the notebooks belonging to Lord Abinger which is in the library ofDuke University.
The text follows Mary Shelley’s manuscript exactly except for theomission of mere corrections by the author, most of which arenegligible; those that are significant are included and explained inthe notes. Footnotes indicated by an asterisk are Mrs. Shelley’s ownnotes. She was in general a fairly good speller, but certain words,especially those in which there was a question of doubling or notdoubling a letter, gave her trouble: untill (though occasionally shedeleted the final l or wrote the word correctly), agreable, occured,confering, buble, meaness, receeded, as well as hopless, lonly,seperate, extactic, sacrifise, desart, and words ending in -ance or-ence. These and other mispellings (even those of proper names) arereproduced without change or comment. The use of sic and of squarebrackets is reserved to indicate evident slips of the pen, obviouslyincorrect, unclear, or incomplete phrasing and punctuation, and myconjectures in emending them.
I am very grateful to the library of Duke University and to itslibrarian, Dr. Benjamin E. Powell, not only for permission totranscribe and publish this work by Mary Shelley but also for the manycourtesies shown to me when they welcomed me as a visiting scholar in1956. To Lord Abinger also my thanks are due for adding his approvalof my undertaking, and to the Curators of the Bodleian Library forpermiting me to use and to quote from the papers in the reservedShelley Collection. Other libraries and individuals helped me while Iwas editing Mathilda: the Enoch Pratt Free Library of Baltimore,whose Literature and Reference Departments went to endless trouble forme; the Julia Rogers Library of Goucher College and its staff; thelibrary of the University of Pennsylvania; Miss R. Glynn Grylls (LadyMander); Professor Lewis Patton of Duke University; ProfessorFrederick L. Jones of the University of Pennsylvania; and many otherpersons who did me favors that seemed to them small but that to mewere very great.
I owe much also to previous books by and about the Shelleys. Those towhich I have referred more than once in the introduction and notes arehere given with the abbreviated form which I have used:
Frederick L. Jones, ed. The Letters of Mary W. Shelley, 2 vols.Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1944 (Letters)
—— Mary Shelley’s Journal. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,1947 (Journal)
Roger Ingpen and W.E. Peck, eds. The Complete Works of Percy ByssheShelley, Julian Edition, 10 vols. London, 1926-1930 (Julian Works)
Newman Ivey White. Shelley, 2 vols. New York: Knopf, 1940 (White,Shelley)
Elizabeth Nitchie. Mary Shelley, Author of “Frankenstein.” NewBrunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1953 (Nitchie, Mary Shelley)
Elizabeth Nitchie
May, 1959