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First complete edition, comprising the first edition of the second part and the second edition of the first part. Written in praise of Elizabeth I and dedicated to her, Spenser's allegorical masterpiece follows the adventures of six medieval knights, drawing on Arthurian legend, Italian romance, classical epic, and Chaucer. In its mingling of genres, the poem represented a new departure in English poetry, for which Spenser invented a new stanza, "a hybrid form adopted from the Scots poetry of James I, 'rhyme royal', and Italian 'ottava rima'" (ODNB). It is likely that Spenser began composing the work in the 1570s, sharing "parcels" of it among friends. Though no rough drafts, autograph copies, or foul papers for the poem have survived, the poet himself alludes to a manuscript copy as early as 1580, when in a letter to Gabriel Harvey he asks for one to be returned to him: "I wil in hande forthwith with my Faery Queene, whyche I praye you hartily send me with al expedition: and your frendly Letters, and long expected Judgment wyth all" (Three Proper, and witty familiar Letters). The poem, or some part of it, was almost certainly circulating in manuscript in London in 1588, when Abraham Fraunce quotes a stanza in his Arcadian Rhetorick, correctly citing its book and canto ("Spencer in his Faerie queene.2.book.cant.4"). The first part was finally printed in 1590 - possibly intended to coincide with the publication of Philip Sidney's Arcadia - and the second part followed, with a new edition of the first, in 1596. Spenser likely composed some of the second part around 1593, as the conversion of Henry IV of France to Catholicism that year provides the historical basis for the Bourbon episode in Book V. The poem, now six books, was entered into the Stationers' Register on 20 January 1596, suggesting publication had been planned to fall during Elizabeth I's Grand Climacteric - her 63rd year, thought by astrologers to be critical - which had begun on 7 September 1595. In 1599, with only six of his projected twelve books completed, Spenser died; his two fragmentary Cantos of Mutabilitie, thought to be intended for Book VII, are the only additional material published with the first folio edition of 1609. READ MORE Two volumes, small quarto (196 x 144 mm). Late 19th-century red morocco, spines lettered in gilt, compartments richly gilt with intricate flower and leaf tools, triple gilt rule to covers, edges and turn-ins gilt, edges gilt, marbled endpapers. Woodcut device of printer Richard Field to title pages, full-page woodcut to M5 verso. Spines slightly darkened, covers lightly marked and rubbed at extremities, upper margin closely trimmed touching a couple of headings, skillful and discreet paper repairs mostly to vol. 1 closing marginal tears, pinholes, and extending corners, a few characters to E8, R8, and Bb1 of vol. 1 supplied in facsimile, text to D1 recto skinned with a dozen characters supplied in pencil, title page of vol. 1 a little soiled, occasional faint stains to contents, recent pencil annotations to the text making comparisons with the 1590 edition, contemporary annotations to title page of vol. 2. A very good copy, with wide outer margins, handsomely bound. Pforzheimer 970; ESTC S117748; John Dryden, "Dedication" in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis, 1693; John Dryden, "Preface" in Fables Ancient and Modern, 1700; C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love, 1936; Edmund Spenser, Three Proper, and witty familia

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.