ABSTRACT
Composition. Mary's Note on the Poems of 1819 in 1840, in which Peter Bell the Third (PB3) first appeared in print, provides the bare circumstances of its inception: ‘A critique on Wordsworth's Peter Bell reached us at Leghorn, which amused Shelley exceedingly and suggested this poem.’ Her Note gives no specific indication of when or where PB3 was composed. The Shelleys arrived in Leghorn (Livorno) on 17 June 1819 and left for Florence on 30 September. It is all but certain that the ‘critique’ she refers to was Leigh Hunt's polemical review in the Examiner for 2 May 1819 of Wordsworth's Peter Bell. A Tale in Verse, which had been published towards the end of April. S. no doubt also read in the previous week's Examiner (25 April) Keats's review of J. H. Reynolds's Peter Bell. A Lyrical Ballad, a parody of Wordsworth's matter and style in Lyrical Ballads, which had itself appeared about a week prior to Wordsworth's original Peter Bell. He says as much, in a facetious allusion, in the Dedication to PB3: ‘Mr Examiner Hunt… presented me to two of the Mr. Bells.’ If the Examiner reviews had been sent to Leghorn by overland post, they might have arrived soon after the Shelleys settled there for the summer; if sent by sea, they might not have reached them until weeks later. Mary's Note in 1840 invites the inference that at least the idea for S.’s poem was the direct and immediate consequence of reading Hunt's review, so she may have remembered S. planning PB3, or even beginning to write it, during the summer at Leghorn. There is no record of his composing it until the autumn in Florence, however, when Mary Jnl notes for 24 October: ‘S. finishes the 3 vol of Clarendon aloud & reads Peter Bell’ (i 300). One cannot be certain whether her entry refers to Wordsworth's poem, just possibly to Reynolds's parody, or to PB3 itself which S. may have read out, at least in part. The next three journal entries contain unequivocal references to S.’s poem: (25–8 October) ‘Work—read—copy Peter Bell’; (29–30 October) ‘S. reads Clarendon aloud— writes Peter Bell’; (31 October–2 November) ‘finish copying Peter Bell which is sent’ (i 300).
