The Textual Condition

Abstract

Shelley’s reception history is in part a history of his textualizations. As befits a true radical, his textual entry into the Hapsburg Empire soon came to the attention of Metternich’s spies, who already knew about his notorious Queen Mab, published in 1813 and pirated since 1821.¹ The Austrian foreign secretary Metternich, intent to restore and protect the political order of Europe, employed a large network of censors and informers, whose files are valuable sources for the circulation of reading matter in the early nineteenth century.² A dossier in the Vienna State Archives, compiled around 1822–1823 by the Austrian police, relates information about Charles Clairmont, brother of Claire Clairmont and stepbrother of Mary Shelley: