Time

The first mention which we have of this Essay is contained in a letter of Shelley to Leigh Hunt, dated May 26th, 1820: "Do you know any publisher or bookseller who would publish for me an octavo volume, entitled A Philosophical View of Reform? It is boldly but temperately written, and, I think, readable. It is intended for a kind of standard book for the philosophical reformers, politically considered like Jeremy Bentham's something, and perhaps more systematic. I will send it sheet by sheet. Will you ask and think for me?"