 Despite the emotions stirred by this task , Mary Shelley arguably proved herself in many respects a professional and scholarly editor . Working from Percy 's messy , sometimes indecipherable , notebooks , she attempted to form a chronology for his writings , and she included poems , such as <unk> , addressed to Emilia Viviani , which she would rather have left out . She was forced , however , into several compromises , and , as Blumberg notes , " modern critics have found fault with the edition and claim variously that she <unk> , misinterpreted , purposely obscured , and attempted to turn the poet into something he was not " . According to Wolfson , Donald Reiman , a modern editor of Percy Bysshe Shelley 's works , still refers to Mary Shelley 's editions , while acknowledging that her editing style belongs " to an age of editing when the aim was not to establish accurate texts and scholarly apparatus but to present a full record of a writer 's career for the general reader " . In principle , Mary Shelley believed in publishing every last word of her husband 's work ; but she found herself obliged to omit certain passages , either by pressure from her publisher , Edward Moxon , or in deference to public propriety . For example , she removed the atheistic passages from Queen Mab for the first edition . After she restored them in the second edition , Moxon was prosecuted and convicted of blasphemous libel , though he escaped punishment . Mary Shelley 's omissions provoked criticism , often stinging , from members of Percy Shelley 's former circle , and reviewers accused her of , among other things , indiscriminate inclusions . Her notes have nevertheless remained an essential source for the study of Percy Shelley 's work . As Bennett explains , " biographers and critics agree that Mary Shelley 's commitment to bring Shelley the notice she believed his works merited was the single , major force that established Shelley 's reputation during a period when he almost certainly would have faded from public view " . 
