ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the poem that was first published by Medwin in the Athenaeum 8 September 1832 and subsequently included without significant modification in his Shelley Papers in 1833, as 'Invocation to Misery'. The poem's possible role in S'. s developing poetic voice may also bear on Neil Fraistat's argument in BSM ix that the textual history of 'Misery. A Fragment' has involved suppression of a political dimension in the poem. S'. s fair copy in Box 1 probably derives from the intermediate fair copy in Nbk 8, which is based in turn on Nbk 11. Mary's text in 1839 is probably based on Medwin's in Shelley Papers, corrected from Box 1, which while evidently the best text has clearly not been used as press copy. See BSM ix Introduction xlvii-xlix, and BSM xxi 448-53, for detailed discussion and collations, and also Joseph Raben, 'Shelley's 'Invocation to Misery': An Expanded Text', JEGP lxv 65-74.
