The Shelley Society was a Victorian literary society founded in London in December 1885 by Frederick James Furnivall to promote the study, performance, and wider circulation of the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. It organised lectures at University College London, published annotated editions and research papers, and sponsored performances, most notably a private production of The Cenci in 1886. At its height the society had around 400 members, including writers and reformers such as William Michael Rossetti, Henry S. Salt, George Bernard Shaw, and Mathilde Blind, with women actively contributing to its publications and debates. Provincial and overseas branches were established, and lectures addressed not only Shelley's poetry but also his politics, religion, and ethics, including his advocacy of vegetarianism in 1890. The society declined in the 1890s but survived in reduced form into the early 20th century, and has been noted for its role in the late-Victorian "single-author" society movement and for its influence on later reform groups such as the Humanitarian League.
The Society was founded on 6 December 1885 under the leadership of Frederick James Furnivall. Membership was open by subscription and it quickly attracted both notable literary figures and amateur enthusiasts.[1]
A printed prospectus issued in late 1885 described the Society's purpose as:[2]
to gather the chief admirers of [Shelley] into a body which will work to do his memory honour, by meeting to discuss his writings, qualities, opinions, life, and doings; by getting his plays acted; by reprinting the rarest of his original editions; by facsimiling such of his [manuscripts]. as may be accessible; by compiling a Shelley Lexicon or Concordance; by getting a Shelley Primer published; by generally investigating and illustrating his genius and personality from every side and in every detail; and by extending his influence.
The prospectus set the subscription at one guinea a year, and named the planned leadership structure with William Michael Rossetti as chairman of committee and Sydney E. Preston as honorary secretary. It proposed leaving the offices of president and vice-president vacant until the Society was established, while an interim committee of twenty—including H. Buxton Forman, John Todhunter, Bertram Dobell, Thomas James Wise, Stopford A. Brooke, W. A. Harrison, Alfred Forman, Henry Sweet (who had first suggested the idea of a Shelley society), and Furnivall—would manage affairs until December 1886, at which point rules and permanent officers would be chosen. The Society was formally constituted for a period of ten years. Its publishers were named as Reeves and Turner of the Strand, and its printers as R. Clay and Sons of London and Bungay.[2]
The prospectus also announced that meetings would take place at University College London, beginning in March 1886.[2] The inaugural public meeting was held there at the Botany Theatre on 10 March, when the Reverend Stopford A. Brooke delivered a lecture titled "Shelley as Poet and Man" to an audience of about 500, of whom roughly 160 were members.[1]
Activities
From its first year the society sponsored monthly literary lectures at University College London by academic and amateur scholars; period commentary characterised the meetings as "critical rather than biographical".[1] It issued a list of publications, including annotated texts, a bibliographical essay, and its Note-Book of the Shelley Society and TheShelley Society's Papers, which printed lectures and discussions and invited contributions beyond the membership.[1]
The Cenci peformance
On 7 May 1886 the society mounted a members-only performance of The Cenci at the Grand Theatre, Islington. Organised by the society's committee as a private matinee for registered members and invited guests after the public licence was refused, the event was framed as part of its remit to legitimise serious study and performance of Shelley's works. The society engaged a professional cast (including Alma Murray as Beatrice and Hermann Vezin as Count Cenci) and issued a printed playbook for members, with prefatory material aligning the production with Shelley's anti-tyrannical themes and the society's critical rather than merely biographical approach. Although admission was restricted, press coverage in London and the provinces reported debates about whether presenting works depicting incest and parricide before mixed-gender audiences was appropriate at the society's events on Shelley.[3]George Bernard Shaw assisted with publicity and commented on society business in his diaries.[4]
"Shelley's Vegetarianism"
In 1890 the society hosted a lecture by William E. A. Axon titled "Shelley's Vegetarianism", which examined Shelley's diet and ethics. Axon opened with a contemporary definition of vegetarianism as "the practice of living on the products of the Vegetable kingdom, with or without the addition of Eggs and Milk and its products (butter and cheese), to the exclusion of Fish, Flesh, and Fowl", and surveyed evidence from Shelley's writings and from contemporaries including Harriet Westbrook, Edward Trelawny, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, and Edward Dowden concerning his diet and health.[5] The following year the lecture was issued in pamphlet form by the Vegetarian Society,[6] whose membership overlapped with that of the Shelley Society.[7]
Membership and debates
Membership rose rapidly, from 144 within the first three months to about 400 by January 1887, with additional non-members attending meetings.[1] Notable members and speakers included H. Buxton Forman, William Michael Rossetti, Stopford A. Brooke, Richard Garnett, Henry S. Salt, George Bernard Shaw, Mathilde Blind, John Todhunter, Bertram Dobell, William Bell Scott, Alfred Forman, and Arthur Napier. Women contributed actively to discussions, and the society's Notebook printed their interventions alongside those of established critics.[1]
At the first regular meeting on 14 April 1886, Shaw declared himself to be "like Shelley, a Socialist, Atheist and Vegetarian", later recalling that two "pious old ladies" who supported Furnivall's societies were so scandalised by the remark that they resigned on the spot.[8]
Internal disputes often centred on Shelley's politics and religion as well as interpretative questions. In March 1887 an application by Edward Aveling was initially rejected on moral grounds before being accepted after protest from Rossetti; in December of that year Aveling and Eleanor Marx presented a paper on "Shelley's Socialism".[1]
Provincial and overseas branches
The society's activities were widely covered in the press, and provincial branches were quickly established in cities such as Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool; overseas branches followed, including in Australia, New Zealand and the United States.[1]
Decline
Financial difficulties and over-ambitious publishing plans curtailed the society's work in the 1890s. The final literary lecture was delivered in December 1890; the society "technically existed into 1901", and in 1902 committee members were still paying off debts.[1] A contemporaneous retrospective by Walter Edwin Peck argued for a longer effective lifespan: he noted that a 1906 reprint of Shelley's "The Necessity of Atheism" was issued "by arrangement with the Shelley Society".[9]
Reception and legacy
Contemporary reception
Contemporary discussion of the Shelley Society, both supportive and satirical, made its practices highly visible, and it became a touchstone in debates about the emerging academic study of English literature and the late-Victorian "single-author" society movement.[1]
Political interpretations
Graham Henderson argues that the society tended to depoliticise Shelley's radical politics, recasting him as a quasi-religious and spiritual figure, whereas participants such as Henry Stephens Salt, Edward Aveling, Eleanor Marx, and George Bernard Shaw contended that his writings should be understood in explicitly socialist and revolutionary terms. This debate culminated in December 1887 when Aveling and Marx presented their paper on "Shelley's Socialism" to the society.[10]
Influence and legacy
Many of the founders of the Humanitarian League, established in 1891 by the English socialist Henry S. Salt and others, had previously been members of the Society. The League, which drew on pre-Marxian radical traditions, became a key forum for advancing the ethical argument for vegetarianism, with Salt and fellow members such as Howard Williams emphasising the moral rather than physiological case for the diet.[11]
The Society's discussions about commemorating Percy Bysshe Shelley's centenary in 1892 helped inspire the creation of the Shelley Memorial Fund. J. Stanley Little, who had served as the society's honorary secretary, proposed a public library at Horsham as a suitable memorial. A fundraising appeal signed by prominent literary figures, including Lord Tennyson, William Morris, and Henry Irving, was launched but raised little money, and the scheme for a library and museum was abandoned. The collected funds were eventually placed in trust and, after several decades without use, were transferred to West Sussex County Council in 1927 to endow the Shelley Memorial Prize, awarded annually in local schools for achievement in science and letters.[12]
Publications
Shelley Society's publications for 1888
The following works were published for the Shelley Society by Reeves and Turner of the Strand, London:
↑ Unti, Bernard (2014). "'Peace on earth among the orders of creation': Vegetarian Ethics in the United States Before World War I". In Helstosky, Carol (ed.). The Routledge History of Food. Abingdon: Routledge. pp.186–188. doi:10.4324/9781315753454. ISBN978-1-315-75345-4.
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