While Percy Bysshe Shelley's reputation rests primarily on his considerable accomplishments as one of the great English Romantic poets, he left a substantial body of prose writings, among them one of the great documents on the Romantic endeavor, A Defence of Poetry. Shelley's prose writings, which span his whole productive career, cover a wide range of topics: philosophical questions raised from Plato's time to his own, religion and belief, politics and society, and the value and uses of literature. In addition to his prose essays Shelley also wrote suggestive prefaces to many of his longer poems and a smattering of reviews, as well as engaging in correspondence with several of his contemporaries, including George Gordon, Lord Byron; John Keats; Leigh Hunt; William Godwin; and Thomas Love Peacock. Shelley's essays, prefaces, and letters, aside from their intrinsic interest, have the added benefit of allowing the reader to see Shelley's...