ABSTRACT
Dating this poem ‘Naples 1818’ in 1824, Mary Shelley wrote: This fragment refers to an event, told in Sismo[n]di’s Histoire des Republiques Italiennes, which occurred during the war when Florence finally subdued Pisa, and reduced it to a province. The opening stanzas [i.e. lines 36-53 below] are addressed to the conquering city’ (1824 257). Shelley was in Naples from 1 December 1818 until 28 February 1819, so December 1818 is a plausible date of composition (this is Paul Dawson’s assumption in BSM iii Introduction xv). But Mary Shelley seems to have been unfamiliar with Nbk 5, which contains Shelley’s private verses to Constantia as well as many false starts, and she may have assumed the date and place because Shelley had been reading Sismondi with her at about that time (Mary Jnl i 247). The nbk indicates an earlier date. Nbk 5 bridges the move from England to Italy, illustrating Shelley’s unsettled state during his first months abroad; except for
