Shelley and his waste-paper basket: notes on eight Shelleyan and pseudo-Shelleyan jottings, extracts, and fragments

Of the many 'unconsidered trifles' found amidst Shelleyiana and within Shelley's notebook jottings, this article selects eight examples, spanning his authorial career (1810–22). Each involves a problem involving attribution, or decipherment, or source identification, which the author believes herself to have unravelled. Such detective work, in addition to the necessary weeding out of Shelley spuria from the canon, can sometimes, in even very marginal and obscure items, bring to light unexpected significance, or at least a curious tale. Among the areas touched on are Shelley's knowledge of old ballads, Cola di Rienzi, Arabic literature, and the Book of Enoch; his borrowing of books from Byron; his fascination with doubleness.