Shelley Society Mtg. notice & member solicitation

Shelley Society meeting information.

Rossetti, William M. "The Shelley Society." Athenaeum (February 13, 1886): 232. Web. 21 September 2011.

Rossetti clarifies new dates for the meetings of The Shelley Society. Also included is a pitch for new members (current membership: "a hundred members, more or less," although by May he claims 400; (Letters 491)). He announces discussion topics and the meeting site, University College, although there are meeting sites around the country, according to Rossetti.

Rossetti recalls in his latter memoir that the Shelley Society was conceived by Frederick James Furnivall who was primary organizer (Reminiscences 2:390), and although Rossetti records in his diary that "Swinburne and Furnival are like oil and water" (Letters 479), Rossetti prevailed in securing a vice-president position for Swinburne nonetheless.

The call for members resulted in a mixed response, with some applicants being refused (e.g. John Addington Symonds (Letters 482)), and some withdrawing their application for membership (e.g., Henry Taylor (Letters 480fn) over the controversy associated with the Society's plans to produce Cenci on stage. Also, the setting of the Hellas chorus to music later that year was considered "a manifest failure, and indeed a fiasco" (Reminiscences 2:391). Ultimately, the Society endured the ten years originally planned and was finally disbanded in 1902 (Reminiscences 2:392).

References: Shelley, Hogg, Professor Dowden, Revs. Stopford Brooke and W.A. Harrison, Dr. Furnivall, Blind, Axon, Bertran, Dobell,, Sarazan, W. Bell Scott, Sweet, Tagetmeir, Verrail, Wise, Sir Percy, Lady Shelley.

"Subscribing members are wanted . . ."