[36] The passage “enough of the world ... in unmixed delight” is on a slip pasted over the middle of the page.  Some of the obscured text is visible in the margin, heavily scored out.  Also in the margin is “Canto IV Vers Ult,” referring to the quotation from Dante’s Paradiso.  This quotation, with the preceding passage beginning “in whose eyes,” appears in Mathilda only.

[37] The reference to Diana, with the father’s rationalization of his love for Mathilda, is in S-R fr but not in F of F—­A.

[38] In F of F—­A this is followed by a series of other gloomy concessive clauses which have been scored out to the advantage of the text.

[39] This paragraph has been greatly improved by the omission of elaborate over-statement; e.g., “to pray for mercy & respite from my fear” (F of F—­A) becomes merely “to pray.”

[40] This paragraph about the Steward is added in Mathilda.  In F of F—­A he is called a servant and his name is Harry.  See note 29.

[41] This sentence, not in F of F—­A, recalls Mathilda’s dream.

[42] This passage is somewhat more dramatic than that in F of F—­A, putting what is there merely a descriptive statement into quotation marks.

[43] A stalactite grotto on the island of Antiparos in the Aegean Sea.

[44] A good description of Mary’s own behavior in England after Shelley’s death, of the surface placidity which concealed stormy emotion.  See Nitchie, Mary Shelley, pp. 8-10.

[45] Job, 17:  15-16, slightly misquoted.

[46] Not in F of F—­A.  The quotation should read: 

Fam.  Whisper it, sister! so and so!  In a dark hint, soft and slow.

[47] The mother of Prince Arthur in Shakespeare’s King John.  In the MS the words “the little Arthur” are written in pencil above the name of Constance.

[48] In F of F—­A this account of her plans is addressed to Diotima, and Mathilda’s excuse for not detailing them is that they are too trivial to interest spirits no longer on earth; this is the only intrusion of the framework into Mathilda’s narrative in The Fields of Fancy.  Mathilda’s refusal to recount her stratagems, though the omission is a welcome one to the reader, may represent the flagging of Mary’s invention.  Similarly in Frankenstein she offers excuses for not explaining how the Monster was brought to life.  The entire passage, “Alas!  I even now ... remain unfinished.  I was,” is on a slip of paper pasted on the page.

[49] The comparison to a Hermitess and the wearing of the “fanciful nunlike dress” are appropriate though melodramatic.  They appear only in Mathilda.  Mathilda refers to her “whimsical nunlike habit” again after she meets Woodville (see page 60) and tells us in a deleted passage that it was “a close nunlike gown of black silk.”