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‘Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things’
Socialist historian KEITH FLETT introduces a rediscovered 1811 Shelley poem dedicated to a persecuted radical journalist
The Peterloo Massacre

THIS year has been the 200th anniversary of Peterloo and with it Shelley’s poem the Masque of Anarchy has received fresh publicity.

It was read by actor Maxine Peake in the historic John Rylands library in Manchester as part of the anniversary activities.

The Masque of Anarchy was not freely available until some years after Peterloo, but the first poem Shelley wrote of political note, while still a student at Oxford in 1811, a Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things, was published at the time.

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