The Devil's Walk

Letter Version

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

edited by Donald H. Reiman and Neil Fraistat

The Devil's Walk exists in both a broadside and a letter version. See the editors' headnote as well as the sections entitled Other Romantic Devils, Historical Contexts, Printing and Attempts to Circulate "The Devil's Walk", Textual Transmission, and Copy-text for a fuller description of its history and significance. Line numbers lead to variants within that line. When a line number is italicized, there is a variation between this text and the copy-text. Clicking on a highlighted number will take you directly to its linked variant. This variant will appear, in most cases, at the very top of a page that will also contain variants for subsequent lines. Links to more local editors' notes are highlighted in the text. Clicking on a highlighted portion of the text will take you directly to its linked annotation. This annotation will appear, in most cases, at the very top of a page that will also contain annotations to subsequent lines. If you wish, you can also browse the variants and the annotations independently:

• primary variants from our critically edited text as collated against the copy of the 1812 broadside in the Public Record Office (1812.PRO).
• broadside variants from our critically edited text as collated against all witnesses (i.e., the primary witness and 1871, 1876, 1892, 1927, 1970, 1972, and 1989).
• letter variants from our diplomatic text as collated against all witnesses (i.e., 1890, 1927/i, 1927/viii, 1964J, 1972, and 1989).
• annotations by the editors:
  • for the the broadside version
  • for the letter version

For full citations of these sources and sources in the editors' notes, see the bibliography.

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Letter Version

N.B. This is a literal transcription of the text in the British Library Add. MS. 37,496, f.80 verso, except that letters partially worn away by damage to, or repair of, the paper have been included as if whole and the line-indentations that Shelley seems to have intended have been accentuated

01	The Devil went out a walking one day
02	Being tired of staying in Hell
03	He dressed himself in his Sunday array
04	And the reason that he was drest so gay
05	Was to cunningly pry, whether under the sky
06	The affairs of earth went well
	__
07	He poked his hot nose into corners so small
08	One wd. think that the innocents there
09	Poor creatures were just doing nothing at all
10	But settling some dress or arranging some ball
11	­­The Devil saw deeper there
	__
12	He peeped in each hole, to each chamber stole
13	His promising live-stock to view
14	Grinning applause, he just shews his claws
15	And Satan laughed in the mirth of his soul
16	That they started with fright, from his ugly sight
17	Whose works they delighted to do
	__
18	A Parson with whom in the house of prayer
19	The devil sate side by side
20	Bawled out that if the devil were
21	His presence he couldnt abide,   trick
22	Ha ha thought old Nick, thats a very stale
23	For without the Devil, ô favorite of evil  ^
24	In thy carriage thou wouldst not ride
	__
25	He saw the Devil a viper slay
26	Under his brief-covered table
27	It reminded the Devil marvellously
28	Of the story of Cain and Abel
	__
29	Satan next saw a Brainless King
30	In a house as hot as his own
31	Many imps he saw near there on the wi[ng]
32	They flapped the black pennon and twiste[d]
	the sting
33	Close to the very throne
	__
34	Ah! Ah cried Satan the pasture is go[od]
35	My cattle will here thrive better than oth[ers]
36	They will have for their food, news of
	humans blood
37	They will drink the groans of the dying
	& dead
38	And supperless never will go to bed
39	Wch. will make 'em as fat as their
	brothers   .
	__
40	The Devil was walking in the Park
41	Dressed like a bond Street beau
42	For altho his visage was rather dark
43	And his mouth was wide his chin came
	out
44	And something like Castlereagh was his
	snout
45	He might be calld so, so . .
	__
46	Why does the Devil grin so wide
47	& shew the hore teeth within
48	Nine and ninety on each side
49	By the clearest reckoning _

Annotations (Letter Version)

lines 1-28. Here we transcribe the original manuscript in Shelley's mid-Jan. 1812 letter to Elizabeth Hitchener (British Library Add. MS. 37,496, f. 80 verso); there is a facsimile of the portion of that letter containing this poetic text, together with another literal transcription, in MYR: Shelley, VIII, ed. D. H. Reiman & M. O'Neill (Garland, 1997), 50-56.

Although the text of these stanzas in F. L. Jones's Letters (I, 235-37) places some characters at the ends of the first 28 lines within brackets, as though they were illegible or missing from the right-hand edge of the manuscript page, the only damage and repair that actually affecting these lines are along the fold of the letter paper at the left-hand edge of the column of poetry--at the beginnings of those lines. Jones must, therefore, have relied upon an imperfect photocopy of the manuscript.

line 6. earth : the initial e may be a capital letter, written minutely.

line 14. We think that the first word is more likely Grinning--as the editors of the letters have it--than "Receiving" (1989). This reading accords with the syntax, since the basix meaning of applause is "approval publicly expressed" and Satan is the active agent throughout this stanza. M. O'Neill, when transcribing the MS for MYR: Shelley, VIII, was dubious about the reading but left "Receiving" in the text, while discussing his doubts in a note.

line 16. Shelley first underscored they, and then canceled the underline.

line 20. Shelley left a blank after were to be filled later--presumably by a word rhyming with prayer (18).

line 22. thats (sic).

lines 25-28. This is the stanza that Shelley directly recollected (though perhaps unwittingly) from The Devil's Thoughts (see note to lines 84-87 of the Broadside). In the letter version, however, Shelley miswrote the Devil for "a lawyer" in line 25; in 26 his is superimposed on the.

line 29. Beginning with this line, Shelley continued his writing on the opposite side of the address panel; from here on, the repair to the worn fold is along the right-hand edge of the text, where the damage does affect the final letters of some words.

line 32. twisted : though 1989 reads this word as "twirled" (and emends twisted in the final text to "twirled" as a possible typo), the crucial letters seem to us to be st.

line 36. humans: Shelley canceled the terminal "s" in his draft.

line 41. bond Street beau (sic).

line 42. For: this word might be read as "Nor" were there not an identical For at the beginning of line 23; altho: first two letters are canceled.

lines 43-44. Shelley, the son of an M.P., had probably seen Castlereagh in person and would certainly have known political caricatures of him.

line 47. hore (given as "horse" in 1927 [Julian, Letters ], and 1964J and as "Iron" in 1989): this Germanic word comes directly from Old English. The Oxford English Dictionary gives it only as an obsolete noun meaning "Dirt, filth, defilement, foulness"; but though the noun had dropped out of use, probably because of its closeness to "hoar" and "whore," Shelley here uses it adjectively, meaning filthy or foul--a usage that may have persisted in rural Sussex.

line 48. and: written minutely and unclearly, but not "&" (as in 1989).

Letter Version

All Witnesses

This part of the editorial apparatus for P.B. Shelley's The Devil's Walk is slightly modified from the way it will appear in The Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, edited by Donald H. Reiman and Neil Fraistat and published by The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Our copy-text, which we transcribe diplomatically, is Shelley's letter to Elizabeth Hitchener of ?16 January 1812 (BLib Add. MS 37496, f. 80v). We collate our Text of the letter version of the poem with 1890, 1927/i, 1927/viii, 1964J, 1972, 1989, and MYR/viii. For full citations of the historical (i.e. not primary) editions, see the bibliography.

We have omitted from our comprehensive collation all variants that seem to us purely formal features of the printers or publishers involved in these editions, such as the length of indentions, the use of full capitals, small caps, and italic or Gothic type in the titles and subtitles­a practice at one time subject to the fonts available in a print-shop or the conventions of its compositorial staff and more recently under the control of publishers, book designers, and copy-editors. In a like manner, when quotation marks have been added, we have not differentiated between single and double quotation marks. Instead, we treat both as double quotes unless evidence suggests an editorial rather than typographical explanation for the appearance of the single quotes.

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Letter Variants

TEXT collated with 1890, 1927/i, 1927/viii, 1964J, 1972, 1989, and MYR/viii.

In 1890, 1927/i, and 1927/viii, the stanzas are numbered with roman numerals.

Note:   The letter version appears once in volume 1 and again in volume viii of Ingpen's & Peck's 1927 edition of The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley.  We collate each below under the sigla 1927/i and 1927/viii.

line 1. a walking ] a-walking 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 day ] day, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 2. Hell ] Hell. 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 3. array ] array; 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 4. drest ] dressed 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 5. pry, whether ] pry whether 1972

 pry | Whether 1890 1927/i 1927/viii


line 6. well ] well. 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1964J 1972


line 7. small ] sma[ll] 1964J


line 8. wd. ] would 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 wd. 1964J 1989

 there ] there, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 ther[e] 1964J


line 9. creatures ] creatures! 1890 1927/i 1927/viii

 creatures, 1972

 all ] all, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii

 a[ll] 1964J


line 10. dress ] dress, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 ball ] ball: 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 ba[ll] 1964J


line 11. ­The ] The 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 there ] there. 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1964J 1972


line 12. stole ] stole, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 sto[le] 1964J


line 13. view ] view. 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 14. Grinning ] Receiving 1989 MYR/viii

 applause, he] applause | He 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 shews ] shows 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 claws ] claws: 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 claw[s] 1964J


line 15. they ] they underline is stricken through  MYR/viii

line 16. fright, ] fright 1972

 fright, from ] fright | From 1890 1927/i 1927/viii

 his ] his omnia


line 17. do ] do. omnia


line 18. whom ] whom, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 prayer ] prayer, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 praye[r] 1964J


line 19. devil ] Devil 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 sate ] sat 1964J

 side ] side, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 20. that ] that, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 devil ] Devil 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 were ] were [there], 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 were [there] 1964J 1989


line 21. couldnt ] couldn't 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 abide, ] abide. 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 22. Ha ha ] "Ha ha!" 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 old ] Old 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 Nick, thats ] Nick, | "That's 1890 1927/i 1927/viii

 Nick, "That's 1890 1972

 trick

 very stale ] very stale trick: 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


 ^

line 23. For ] For, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 Devil, ô ] Devil, | O 1890 1927/i 1927/viii

 Devil, O 1964J 1972

 favorite ] favourite 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 evil ] evil, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 24. ride ] ride!" 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 ride. 1964J


line 25. the Devil ] the Devil [? a Lawyer] 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1964J

 a Lawyer 1972

 the Devil [for  a lawyer] 1989


line 26. table ] table: 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


 his ] this/his "his" is superimposed on "this"  MYR/viii

line 28. Abel ] Abel. 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1964J 1972


line 29. Brainless] brainless 1890

 King ] king; 1890

 King; 1927/i 1972

 King, 1927/viii

line 30. In ... own] Many imps he saw there on the wing: 1890

 own ] own. 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 31. Many ... wi[ng] ] In a house as hot as his own. 1890

 wi[ng] ] wing: 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 win[g] 1964J

 wing 1989 MYR/viii


line 32. pennon ] pennon, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 and ] & 1989

 twiste[d] ] twisted 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 twirle[d] 1989 MYR/viii

 sting ] sting, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 33. throne ] throne. 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1964J 1972


line 34. Ah! Ah ] "Ah ah!" 1890 1927/i 1927/viii

 Satan ] Satan, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 the ] "the 1890 1927/i 1927/viii

 go[od] ] good! 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 good 1964J 1989 MYR/viii


line 35. here ] here 1890

 here  1927/i 1927/viii 1964J 1972 1989

 oth[ers] ] others! 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 others 1989

 other[s] MYR/viii

line 36. food, ] food 1972

 food, news ] food | News 1890 1927/i 1927/viii

 humans ] human omnia

 blood ] blood: 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 37. & ] and 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 dead ] dead, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 38. bed ] bed, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 39. Wch. ] Which 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 Wch. 1964J

 Wch 1989

 brothers . ] brothers." 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 brothers. 1964J 1989

line 40. Park ] Park, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 41. bond ] Bond 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 beau ] beau: 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 42. For altho ] Nor, although 1890

 Nor, tho' 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 Nor tho 1964J

 For tho 1989

 dark ] dark, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 43. wide ] wide, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 out ] out, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 44. snout ] snout, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 45. calld ] called 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1964J 1972

 so, so . . ] so-so. 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 so, so. 1964J 1989 MYR/viii


line 46. wide ] wide, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 47. & ] And 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 shew ] show 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 hore ] horse 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 [? horse] 1964J

 Iron 1989 MYR/viii

 within ] within?­ 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 48. Nine and ninety ] Nine-and-ninety 1890

 Nine & ninety 1989

 side ] side, 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972


line 49. reckoning _ ] reckoning! 1890 1927/i 1927/viii 1972

 reckoning­ 1964J 1989

 __ ] omitted MYR/viii 

DW Diplomatic Text (Letter Version) Critical Text (Broadside Version)