SPENSER, Edmund.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The Faerie Queene. Disposed into twelve books, fashioning XII. Morall Vertues. First edition of both parts, printing the complete text of Spenser's classic work, except for two cantos of Mutabilitie which did not appear until the folio edition of 1609; with the first state of the title page. 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 circ

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