Books

London: George Allen,, 1894-97. In the original parts First Crane edition, deluxe issue, number 17 of 28 copies printed on japon, of which 25 only were for sale. This is one of the finest editions of Spenser's masterpiece and "Crane's most important work in terms of quantity... a major achievement among Crane's later black and white work" (Spencer, p. 135). This was one of Crane's last commissions, appearing towards the end of his career when his fame as a book illustrator was well established. In his treatise Of the Decorative Illustration of Books Old and New (1896), he explained the approach he adopted to illustrate The Faerie Queene: "The full page designs are all treated as panels of figure design, or pictures and are enclosed in fanciful borders, in which subsidiary incidents of characters of the poem are introduced or suggested, somewhat on the plan of mediaeval tapestries" (p. 222); he also pointed out that the designs expressed "my own feeling - and designing must…

The Faerie Queene is a celebrated epic poem by Edmund Spenser, first published in 1590. The poem is an allegory praising Queen Elizabeth I and reflecting the values and ideologies of Elizabethan England. It is one of the longest poems in the English language and is renowned for its richly imaginative narrative and moral allegory.