An Atheistic Surprise

Posted on May 1, 2015 | in CRC, Library & University Collections | by

2015-05-01 08.52.11sWe keep finding things we didn’t know we had!  Special Collections has been playing host to experts from the London firm of specialist booksellers, Bernard Quaritch.  During their investigations they unearthed this little pamphlet which turns out to be an uncatalogued and unrecorded copy of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley’s first publication, “The Necessity of Atheism”, printed in 1811.  This cheeky little tract dismisses the entire history of theology and belief in 13 small pages, concluding triumphantly “Every reflecting mind must allow that there is no proof of the existence of a Deity. Q.E.D.”.  Shelley was at the time 19 and a student at University College, Oxford.  As a result of circulating this within the University (and to the Anglican Bishops!) he was expelled and the pamphlet suppressed.  There are only 2 surviving copies listed on COPAC (and another 3 in E.B. Murray’s standard edition of The Prose Works).  Our copy seems to have come from the Dugald Stewart bequest in 1910.  We will now get it catalogued, hopefully without any dangerous consequences.

Comments are closed.

Follow @EdUniLibraries on Twitter

Collections

Default utility Image Archival Provenance Project: Emily’s finds               My name is Emily, and I’m the second of the two archive interns that...
Default utility Image Archival Provenance Project: a glimpse into the university’s history through some of its oldest manuscripts               My name is Madeleine Reynolds, a fourth year PhD candidate in History of Art....

Projects

Sustainable Exhibition Making: Recyclable Book Cradles In this post, our Technician, Robyn Rogers, discusses the recyclable book cradles she has developed...
Default utility Image Giving Decorated Paper a Home … Rehousing Books and Paper Bindings In the first post of this two part series, our Collection Care Technician, Robyn Rogers,...

Archives

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.