"INCOMPARABLY THE GREATEST MASTER IN OUR LANGUAGE": THE FIRST COLLECTED EDITION OF SPENSER, 1611
SPENSER, Edmund. The Faerie Queen: The Shepheards Calendar; together with the other Works of England's Arch-Poet… Collected into one Volume, and carefully corrected. London: by H.L. for Mathew Lownes, 1611. Small folio, late 19th-century full dark brown morocco rebacked with original spin laid down, gilt centerpieces, raised bands, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt.
First collected edition of Spenser's works. The important second issue, which includes "Mother Hubberds Tale" (officially suppressed in the first issue). Handsomely bound by Riviere.
One of the great and lasting achievements of the Elizabethan era, The Faerie Queene reflects the remarkable intellectual progress of its age. To accommodate what was essentially a new kind of poetry Spenser invented a new rhyme scheme, the Spenserian stanza, into which he could cast this beautiful prose-poem. A number of the lines in The Faerie Queene are among the best-known and most lyrical in English, and as a whole it ranks as one of the finest long allegorical poems ever written. "The only great poem that had been written in English since Chaucer died" (DNB). Of Spenser, Robert Southey wrote, "He is the great master of English versification— incomparably the greatest master in our language." In addition to The Faerie Queen (complete with the "Two Cantos of Mutabilitie"), this fine collection includes The Shepheards Calendar, "Prosopopia. Or Mother Hubberds Tale," "Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh," Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, Prothalamion, Amoretti and Spithalamion, Four Hymnes, Daplmaida, and Complaints, each bearing a separate title page. Text embellished with many fine woodcut vignettes, initials, head- and tailpieces. Second issue, with "Mother Hubbard's Tale" with title page dated 1613 and title page of the Second Part of The Faerie Queen dated 1613 as well. "Mother Hubbard's Tale" was omitted from all copies sold prior to the death of Sir Robert Cecil in 1612; it was thereafter inserted in the unsold copies of the 1609-11 issue. Publisher Lownes canceled the 1609 Faerie Queen title page and added 1611 editions of the remaining works. Without blank leaf Hh6 at the end of The Faerie Queen but with blank F4 at end of Shepheards Calendar. The eight-leaf signature containing the Letter to Raleigh and commendatory sonnets follows the general title page, as usual, but is here without the final leaf [¶8], also a blank. Pforzheimer 973. STC 23084. Bookplate. A few instances of ink underlining to text.
Restoration to upper corner of title page, with a portion of the woodcut border supplied in neat pen facsimile. Occasional faint evidence of dampstaining. A near-fine copy.