This volume prints for the first time the full text of Mary Shelley's
novelette Mathilda together with the opening pages of
its rough draft, The Fields of Fancy. They are transcribed from
the microfilm of the notebooks belonging to Lord Abinger which
is in the library of Duke University.

The text follows Mary Shelley's manuscript exactly except for
the omission of mere corrections by the author, most of which are
negligible; those that are significant are included and explained in
the notes. Footnotes indicated by an asterisk are Mrs. Shelley's
own notes. She was in general a fairly good speller, but certain
words, especially those in which there was a question of doubling
or not doubling a letter, gave her trouble: untill (though occasion-
ally she deleted the final I 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)
are reproduced without change or comment. The use of sic and of
square brackets is reserved to indicate evident slips of the pen,
obviously incorrect, unclear, or incomplete phrasing and punctua-
tion, and my conjectures in emending them.

I am very grateful to the library of Duke University and to
its librarian, Dr. Benjamin E. Powell, not only for permission to
transcribe and publish this work by Mary Shelley but also for the
many courtesies shown to me when they welcomed me as a visiting
scholar in 1956. To Lord Abinger also my thanks are due for adding
his approval of my undertaking, and to the Curators of the Bodleian
Library for permiting me to use and to quote from the papers in the
reserved Shelley Collection. Other libraries and individuals helped
me while I was editing Mathilda: the Enoch Pratt Free Library
of Baltimore, whose Literature and Reference Departments went
to endless trouble for me; the Julia Rogers Library of Goucher
College and its staff; the library of the University of Pennsylvania;
Miss R. Glynn Grylls ( Lady Mander); Professor Lewis Patton
of Duke University; Professor Frederick L. Jones of the Uni-

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