`Shelley's conception of love lies at the heart of his radical views on social justice, political liberty, and poetry itself.' In bringing together for the first time Shelley's almost unknown prose writings on love, Richard Holmes presents an intellectual and emotional portrait of a great poet's beliefs and personality developing from adolescence to the threshold of maturity, when at the age of thirty they were tragically cut short.

The anthology does not merely give a Romantic poet's view of romantic passion, but treats of Love at large, in all its forms and manifestations. The collection is divided biographically into six thematic sections, so that the reader may follow closely the development of Shelley's views in response to his experiences. Shelley's wonderfully graceful version of Plato's `Symposium' is rescued from obscurity, and three telling extracts from his lesser-read long poems serve to crystallize his attitudes to love at critical points.

Richard Holmes' `Shelley: the Pursuit' (1974) was described by Stephen Spender as `the best biography of Shelley ever written.' It won the 1977 Somerset Maugham Award. His other publications include a biographical study of Thomas Chatterton; translations of ghost stories of Théophile Gautier, `My Fantoms'; and the Oxford Past Masters `Coleridge' (1982). He is a frequent contributor to the literary pages of `The Times' in London, and `Harper's' in New York. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.