This volume prints for the first time the full text of Mary Shelley's novelette _Mathilda_ together with the opening pages of its rough draft, _The Fields of Fancy_.

They are transcribed from the microfilm of the notebooks belonging to Lord Abinger which is in the library of Duke University.
The text follows Mary Shelley's manuscript exactly except for the omission of mere corrections by the author, most of which are negligible; those that are significant are included and explained in the notes.

Footnotes indicated by an asterisk are Mrs.Shelley's own notes.

She was in general a fairly good speller, but certain words, especially those in which there was a question of doubling or not doubling a letter, gave her trouble: untill (though occasionally she deleted the final _l_ or wrote the word correctly), agreable, occured, confering, buble, meaness, receeded, as well as hopless, lonly, seperate, extactic, sacrifise, desart, and words ending in -ance or -ence.

These and other mispellings (even those of proper names) are reproduced without change or comment.