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In this division, the two notebooks containing the finished draft of Mathilda and a portion of The Fields of Fancy went to Lord Abinger, the notebook containing the remainder of the rough draft to the Bodleian Library, and some loose sheets containing additions and revisions to Sir John Shelley-Rolls. The concluding portion occupies the first fifty-four pages of the Bodleian notebook.
A third part went to Sir John Shelley-Rolls, the poet's grand-nephew, who released much important Shelley material, but not all the scattered manuscripts.
The Bodleian notebook is catalogued as MSS. Shelley d. 1, the Shelley-Rolls fragments as MSS. Shelley adds c. 5. The text of the opening of The Fields of Fancy, containing the fanciful framework of the story, later discarded, is printed after the text of Mathilda. Florence. Nov. 9th 1819
The Shelley-Rolls fragments, twenty-five sheets or slips of paper, usually represent additions to or revisions of The Fields of Fancy: many of them are numbered, and some are keyed into the manuscript in Lord Abinger's notebook. Most of the changes were incorporated in Mathilda. The second Abinger notebook contains the complete and final draft of Mathilda, 226 pages.
Following page 216, four sheets containing the conclusion of the story are cut out of the notebook. They appear, the pages numbered 217 to 223, among the Shelley-Rolls fragments. The mode of telling the story in the final draft differs radically from that in the rough draft. In The Fields of Fancy Mathilda's history is set in a fanciful framework.
Abbreviations: F of F A The Fields of Fancy, in Lord Abinger's notebook F of F B The Fields of Fancy, in the notebook in the Bodleian Library S-R fr fragments of The Fields of Fancy among the papers of the late Sir John Shelley-Rolls, now in the Bodleian Library In the MS of the journal, however, it is spelled first Matilda, later Mathilda.
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