“The Shelley Legend”

Late in 1945 appeared a book entitled The Shelley Legend. It was published by Charles Scribner's Sons, and was written by Professor Robert M. Smith of Lehigh University in collaboration with Mr. Theodore G. Ehrsam, Miss Martha M. Schlegel, and Mr. Louis A. Waters. These authors began their labors in 1943 with apparently no previous experience in Shelley research and in less than two years claim to have discovered not only the real Shelley but also the fact that the patient biographical and critical labors of a long line of predecessors are in the main wrong. They even “venture the opinion that at least fifty per cent of the present attitude toward Shelley still stems from this cult [Lady Shelley's] of worshippers.” (p. 305) Their predecessors include Leigh Hunt, Mary Shelley, Thomas Medwin, T. J. Hogg, T. L. Peacock, E. J. Trelawny, Lady Jane Shelley, Richard Garnett, D. F. MacCarthy, W. M Rossetti, H. Buxton Forman, J. Cordy Jeaffreson, Edward Dowden, Mrs. Julian Marshall, J. A. Symonds, William Sharpe, A. J. Koszul, Mrs. Helen Rossetti Angeli, Walter Peck, André Maurois, Newman I. White, and a host of lesser contributors, many of whom are of the highest intellectual and scholarly attainments. It is claimed that these intelligent people, who have accumulated, tested, and published the greatest quantity of materials on any modern writer, have lacked discernment sufficient to free themselves from a false interpretation of Shelley presented to the world by Mary Shelley and Lady Jane Shelley and have been unable to base their conclusions on the facts in hand. This claim is made in spite of the fact, evident from the book itself, that no authors in question except Richard Garnett, Dowden, and Mrs. Marshall can in any way be shown as coming within the sphere of Lady Shelley's influence, and in spite of the fact that some were positive rebels against any possible influence of Lady Shelley; namely, Peacock, Trelawny, W. M. Rossetti, and J. Cordy Jeaffreson.