In it, the author draws attention to the radical political stance of the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, as revealed in poems such as "Queen Mab" and "The Masque of Anarchy".

[1] Foot describes how Shelley, while living in Italy, heard the news of the Peterloo Massacre of 1819.

[2] "The Masque of Anarchy", Foot's favourite poem, was given to his sons to learn by heart,[3] and a live performance by Maxine Peake at the 2013 Manchester International Festival, to commemorate the anniversary of Peterloo was the basis of a BBC Culture Show documentary that referenced Foot's work.

[7] However, critics including Christopher Hitchens have shed doubt on Foot's interpretation of Shelley's poetry, which "if [one doesn't] chance to know its context may be as readily pressed into service by any movement".

[8] In 2019, poet and activist Benjamin Zephaniah identified Red Shelley as a book that changed his life", saying: "As a young, angry black man in the 1980s, it was a revelation to find a dead white poet that made sense to me.