Henry Salt on Shelley: Literary Criticism and Ecological Identity

Henry Salt on Shelley: Literary Criticism and Ecological Identity

Henry Stephens Salt (1851-1939) engaged with Percy Shelley's poetry, prose, and ideas in a writing career that spanned a half-century. This essay considers the implications of using this pre-professional cultural critic as a model for contemporary Ecocriticism. Salt is known today as author of a biography of Thoreau and for several prescient books on animal rights; he valued Shelley as "a pioneer of humanitarianism," a term used expansively by Salt to include concerns about health and the natural world. Salt's subjective method became seen as outmoded after T.S. Eliot's infamous attacks on Shelley in The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933). This essay revisits the failure of the ecological imagination in Eliot's critique, and in the imperatives of much subsequent criticism on Shelley and Romanticism.

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Selected Bibliography of Henry Stephens Salt

William Stroup, Keene State College

My explicit concern in this essay is on Salt as a Shelleyan; yet as I hope my argument makes clear, this title invites and perhaps even demands a wide range of interests and expertise. This selected bibliography is in chronological order, indicating the recurring themes and varied developments of Salt's career.

Adapted (with corrections) from Stephen Winsten, Salt and His Circle (London: Hutchinson, 1951). Periodical publications not included; for those pertaining to Shelley, see references in Clement Dunbar's Bibliography of Shelley Studies, 1823-1950 (New York: Garland, 1976).

A Shelley Primer. Shelley Society Publications, Fourth series, No. 4. London: Reeves & Turner, 1887.

Literary Sketches. London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowery & Co., 1888.

A Study of Shelley's "Julian and Maddalo." (Limited to 25 copies). Privately printed, 1888.

An Examination of Hogg's "Life of Shelley". (Limited to 25 copies). Privately printed, 1889.

Life of James Thomson ("B.V."), with a Selection from His Letters and a Study of His Writings. London: A. C. Fifield, 1889.

The Life of Henry David Thoreau. London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1890.

Animals' Rights and Social Progress, With a Bibliographical Appendix. Revised Edition. London: George Bell & Sons, Ltd., 1892.

Shelley's Principles: Has Time Refuted or Confirmed Them? London: Reeves & Turner, 1892.

Richard Jefferies: A Study. London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowery & Co., 1893.

Songs of Freedom (Selected and Edited). Canterbury Poets. London: Walter Scott, Ltd., 1893.

Tennyson as a Thinker. London: Reeves & Turner, 1893.

Animals' Rights, Considered in Relation to Social Progress. Also an Essay on Vivisection in America by Albert Leffingwell. New York and London: Macmillan, 1894.

Percy Bysshe Shelley: Poet and Pioneer; A Biographical Study. London: Reeves & Turner. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1896.

The Song of the Respectables and Other Verses. Manchester: Labour Press Society, Ltd., 1896.

Cruelties of Civilization: A Programme of Humane Reform. (Edited by Henry S. Salt). London: Reeves & Turner, 1897.

Kith and Kin: Poems of Animal Life. London: George Bell & Sons, 1901.

Shelley as a Pioneer of Humanitarianism. Reprinted from Humane Review. London: Humanitarian League, 1902.

De Quincey. Miniature Series of Great Writers. London: George Bell & Sons. New York: Macmillan, 1904.

Richard Jefferies: His Life and His Ideals. London: A. C. Fifield, 1905.

The Logic of Vegetarianism, Essays and Dialogues. London: George Bell & Sons, 1906.

On Cambrian and Cumbrian Hills: Pilgrimages to Snowdon and Scawfell. London: A. C. Fifield, 1908.

The Ethics of Corporal Punishment. London: Humanitarian League, 1909.

The Eton Hare Hunt. London: A. C. Fifield, 1909.

The Secret of the Reptile House: Snake Feeding at the Zoological Gardens. London: Humanitarian League, 1909.

The Humanities of Diet: Some Reasonings and Rhymings. London: Vegetarian Society, 1914.

The Flogging Craze: A Statement of the Case Against Corporal Punishment. London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1916.

Henry David Thoreau: A Centenary Essay. London: Humanitarian League, 1917.

Killing for Sport: Essays by Various Writers. Edited by Henry S. Salt, with preface by Bernard Shaw. "War Time Edition." London: George Bell & Sons, 1917.

Seventy Years Among Savages. London: Allen & Unwin. New York: Boni, 1921.

Animals' Rights Considered in Relation to Social Progess. Revised Edition. London: George Bell & Sons. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1922.

The Call of the Wildflower. London: Allen & Unwin. 1922.

The Story of My Cousins: Brief Animal Biographies. London: Watts & Co., 1923.

Homo Rapiens and Other Verses. London: Watts & Co., 1926.

The Heart of Socialism. Independent Labour Party, 1927.

The Story of Aeneas: Virgil's "Aeneid" Translated into English Verse. Translated by Henry S. Salt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. New York: Macmillan, 1928.

Our Vanishing Wildflowers and Other Essays. Afterword by Sir M. Abbot-Anderson. London: Watts & Co., 1928.

Memories of Bygone Eton. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1928.

Political Justice; A Reprint of the Essay on Property from the Original Edition, by William Godwin. Edited by Henry S. Salt. London: Allen & Unwin, 1929.

Company I Have Kept. London: Allen & Unwin, 1930.

Cum Grano, Verses and Epigrams by Henry S. Salt. Berkley Heights, N.J.: Oriole Press, 1931.

The Creed of Kinship. London: Constable & Co., 1935.

William Stroup

University of Maryland Online, 2001