New in our Collectible catalogue:
Heathcote Williams – Shelley at Oxford
…In Shelley, Williams has found his ideal subject. The rogue aristocrat who became an outcast from English society because of his wild ideas about political and spiritual freedom; the teenager expelled from Oxford after just six months’ residence, who, by a cynical sleight of hand, has been rehabilitated as part of the ‘cultural legacy’ of the university; the opponent of church, state, and monarchy, the advocate of vegetarianism, free love, and political revolution; the poet who was presented to the Victorian age as an ‘ineffectual angel’, rhapsodising over birds, clouds, wind, and ocean, but who in reality was consumed with anger at the misery and corruption of human life. Through Williams, Shelley speaks to us again, forcing us to ask what we have really achieved in the two centuries since he lived and died…
(from Peter Whitfield’s foreword)