Books

1897. First Edition. (CRANE, Walter, illustrator) SPENSER, Edmund. Spenser's Faerie Queene. London: George Allen (Chiswick Press), 1897. Six volumes. Quarto, contemporary three-quarter vellum gilt, brown morocco spine labels, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt, uncut; original wrappers bound in at rear of each volume. $5200.Limited first book-form edition of Walter Crane's ""most ambitious project of book illustration"" (Lacy, 103), one of 1000 large-paper copies, with 88 splendid full-page pen-and-ink line-cuts (two double-page), 135 illustrative head- and tailpieces by Crane, and six facsimile title pages from earlier editions. Handsomely bound by J. Adams of Manchester.""The noblest allegorical poem in our language—indeed the noblest allegorical poem in the world"" (James Montgomery). Originally published in the late 16th century (the first three books in 1590 and the next three in 1596, with the ""Mutabilitie Cantos"" added in 1609), Spenser's ambitious Arthurian…

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.

The first edition of 'The Faerie Queene' can be identified by the presence of the original publisher's colophon and the year '1590' on the title page.