Beschreibung:

The Faerie Queene Edmund Spenser, 1590 & 1596 SPENSER, Edmund (c.1552-1599). The Faerie Queene. Disposed into twelve books, fashioning XII. Morall Vertues [contains Books 1-3]. London: [John Wolf] for William Ponsonbie, 1590. –. The Second Part of the Faerie Qveene, containing the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Bookes. London: [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, 1596. First edition of both parts. Except for two cantos of "Mutabilities" which were first published in the 1609 folio edition, these two volumes contain the full published text of the Faerie Queen. “The Faerie Queene was a new departure in the history of English poetry, being a combination of Italian romance, classical epic, and native English styles, principally derived from Chaucer. Spenser signalled this by inventing a new stanza (which has come to be known as the Spenserian stanza), a hybrid form adopted from the Scots poetry of James I, ‘rhyme royal’, and Italian ‘ottava rima’. It contained nine lines, the first eight being pentameters and the last line an alexandrine, and employed the rhyme scheme ababbcbcc” (DNB). This is the issue with the first digit of the date under "i" in "William." In this copy, the cancellanda in vol 1 are still present, and the Welsh words in lines 4 and 5 of p. 332 are not printed, spaces being left for them to be filled in by hand; Grolier Langland to Wither 231 and 233; Hayward 22; Johnson Spenser 9 and 11; Pforzheimer 969 and 970; STC S123180 and S117748. Two volumes, quarto (187 x 127mm). Woodcut devices on titles in both vols, full-page woodcut of Saint George, woodcut initials and typographic ornaments (light dampstaining in gutter of vol 1, small iron burn affecting woodcut, a few headlines just shaved, occasional spots). 18th-century calf (rebacked). Provenance: manuscript corrections and marks in vol 1, marginal comments in vol 2 (some trimmed) – Edward D'Oyly (inscription dated 1789) – William Hirst (name on title and flyleaves, inscription stating this book was given in remembrance of him by William Thompson on the occasion of the former's death in 1879 to:) – William Stubbs (inscription on pastedowns).