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The works of that famous English poet, Mr. Edmond Spenser. Viz. The fairy Queen, The shepherd's calendar, The history of Ireland, &c.

Edmond Spenser (c1552-1599)
London: Printed by Henry Hills for Jonathan Edwin, 1679

Rare Books & Special Collections
Strong Room Collection SR 821.31 S74.H

We thank our donor...

Conservation treatment of The works of that famous English poet, Mr. Edmond Spenser... was funded through the generosity of an anonymous donor in December 2014.

Synopsis

Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser was born c1552 in East Smithfield, London.  He was educated first at the Merchant Taylor’s School in London where he studied Latin, Hebrew, Greek and music, and then at Pembroke College, Cambridge.  He received a Bachelor of Arts in 1573 and a Masters in 1576, gaining a wide knowledge of Italian, French and English literature in the process.

Learning about the traditional forms and themes of lyrical and narrative poetry provided Spenser with an excellent foundation upon which to build his own compositions.  His first major work, The Shepherd’s Calendar, appeared in 1579 and emulated Eclogues by the ancient Roman poet, Virgil.  It consisted of a series of pastorals, or short poems, which could be read together or separately and which dealt with topics such as abuses of the church, praise for Queen Elizabeth and Colin Spenser’s shattered love for Rosalind.

The Fairie Queene was Spenser’s masterpiece.  The epic poem consisted of three books first published in 1590, followed by a second set of three books published in 1596.  Remarkably, it was still considered incomplete, with Spenser originally intending for the poem to be released in twelve books.  Despite this, it remains one of the longest poems in the English language.  An allegorical work, the poem featured several knights and the virtues they embodied, including holiness, temperance, chastity, friendship, justice and courtesy.  It proved to be a controversial piece.  Spenser’s allusions to certain events and issues and to individuals such as Mary, Queen of Scots and the Queen herself were not always favourable.  James VI of Scotland was particularly unimpressed by Spenser’s negative depiction of his mother, and the work was subsequently banned in that country.  Although written for and dedicated to Queen Elizabeth herself, the poem also raised questions about her ability to rule effectively because of her gender, and its characters personified her in ways that were, at times, far from complimentary.  This led to a significant decrease in her support for the poem.  She was, however, pleased with the end result and granted Spenser an annual pension of £50 for his effort.

A View of the State of Ireland, was the third major piece to find its way into Works of that famous English poet…  Spenser had spent much of his adult life in Ireland, where uprisings against English rule were frequent, so he was keen to document the situation.  Originally written in 1596, but not printed until 1633, the work was essentially a dialogue between two fictional Englishmen, Eudox and Iren, who examined the reasons why previous attempts to subdue the Irish had failed, and proposed strategies to impose English rule once and for all.  Some of Spenser’s proposals were brutal and he insisted on martial rather than common law as the solution to the problem.  Indeed, the fact that he suggested the best way to reduce the Irish to permanent submission was to starve them was wicked even by English colonial standards.[1]  Suggestions such as these were difficult even for the English authorities, who had a vested interest in suppressing Irish opposition, to stomach and potentially explained the thirty-seven year delay in the work’s publication.[2]

Despite the controversial nature of some of Spenser’s works, or perhaps even because of it, he is considered by many as one of the greatest poets of the English language and the major poet of the English Renaissance.  His poems changed the course of English literature beyond recognition.

Original Condition

Front board detached and leather beginning to lift from spine. Head and tail of spine bumped, and board corners and edges severely chipped. Marbled paper cover starting to delaminate from boards and inner joints weakened, with endpapers splitting. Multiple paper tears to frontispiece and title page.

Restoration by Anthony Zammit

Cover and spine removed to expose the sewing system of the textblock. Gatherings re-sewn so that pages open easily. New leather spine created and remains of original spine reattached to the new calf skin leather. New headband inserted at the tail of the spine. Board corners consolidated and re-covered with new leather, sympathetic in colour to the original. Endpapers lifted carefully and linen tape inserted underneath to reinforce the inner joints. Marbled paper to cover stabilised and tears to frontispiece and title page repaired with Japanese paper.

Endnotes

1. "Edmund Spenser, from A View of the Present State of Ireland", The Norton Anthology of English Literature, accessed 13 December 2016
https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/16century/topic_4/spenview.htm

2. "Another Case of Censorship? The Riddle of Edmund Spenser's 'A View of the Present State of Ireland'", Andrew Hadfield, History Ireland, accessed online 13 December 2016
http://www.historyireland.com/early-modern-history-1500-1700/another-case-of-censorship-the-riddle-of-edmund-spensers-a-view-of-the-present-state-of-ireland-c-1596/