Two volumes, both first editions. Quarto. Early 20th-century crushed red morocco, gilt-lettered on spine, board-edges gilt-ruled and turn-ins gilt, edges gilt, by Roger de Coverley & Sons. Woodcut printer's device on each title, full-page woodcut on M5v of Vol. I, typographical ornaments and initials. A very good set, with the title to the first part a little soiled with a minor to the lower corner, otherwise extremely fresh with just occasional discreet marginal repairs, with some catchwords restored; leaves Pp6-8 supplied from another copy (see notes) with minor repairs to those leaves and some numbers and letters restored in ink facsimile. The second part trimmed close at the top, affecting the headlines slightly on three leaves (Q5, Cc5-6); Hh2 and Ii6 have corner repairs. Occasional minor soiling or spots in both volumes.

The complete text of Spenser's classic work, except for two cantos of Mutabilitie which did not appear until the folio edition of 1609. 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.
John Dryden notes that "Spencer more than once insinuates, that the Soul of Chaucer was transfus'd into his Body; and that he was begotten by him Two hundred years after his Decease" (Dryden, f. A1). 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).
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 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 Iudgement wythal" (Three Proper, and wittie 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.
In this copy, the first part (Vol. I) has the widely spaced date line on title and the "1" of "1590" under the "r" of "for" in the imprint, the printed dedication on verso of title-page, p.332 lines 4 and 5 without the Welsh words and spaces left for them. The terminal complimentary sonnets are present in both states with leaves Pp6-8 (the rejected version of the sonnets) supplied from another copy and the final signature Qq1-4 printing the revised version of the sonnets. The misnumbering of pages is as noted in Pforzheimer, except that on pp. 486-7, which are correctly numbered, and with the number "3" is present at p.403 (but printed backwards). The second part has the misnumberings noted in Pforzheimer, with the addition of p.269 misnumbered 271.

PROVENANCE: Sir Edmund William Gosse (bookplates); William Carman (his sale, Parke-Bernet, 1965).

ESTC S117748; Grolier, Langland to Wither 231 & 233; Hayward 22; Pforzheimer 969 & 970; STC 23081 & 23082. John Dryden, "Preface" in Fables Ancient and Modern, 1700; Edmund Spenser, Three Proper, and wittie familiar Letters, 1580.  

Stock ID: 45469