Selected Letters and Other Papers - Hardcover

Spenser, Edmund

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199558213 ISBN 13: 9780199558216

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2009

Synopsis

Edmund Spenser, Selected Letters and Other Papers provides the first published text of the diplomatic and personal papers written, copied, and handled by Spenser during his years of secretarial service and colonial planting in Ireland, 1580-1589. These manuscript letters and papers represent a rich resource for the study of Spenser's poetry and prose - particularly his allegorical epic The Faerie Queene (1590, 1596) and his study of Irish culture and government, A view of the present state of Ireland (1596) - giving unparalleled insight into the day-to-day administration of the New English government in Ireland, in both Dublin and Munster, during a time of constant war, diplomacy, social engineering, espionage, and plantation. In a generous introduction, Burlinson and Zurcher situate Spenser's Irish secretarial experience in its political and military contexts, survey the conditions and constraints of early modern secretaryship, and draw out the importance of the letters to the studies of Spenser's verse and prose. The selection (constituting about half of Spenser's known surviving papers) is fully annotated throughout with both textual and interpretative notes, which explain the dense and complex historical reference of the documents, and point readers toward further reading in both manuscript and printed sources. The volume also includes illustrations from several of Spenser's manuscripts, as well as an extensive set of appendices including biographical essays on Spenser's associates, a chronology, maps, and other materials.

About this title

About the Author

Andrew Zurcher is a Fellow and Newton Trust Lecturer in English at Queens' College, Cambridge. He is the author of Spenser's Legal Language: Law and Poetry in Early Modern England (Boydell and Brewer, 2007), and is an editor of the forthcoming Oxford University Press Collected Works of Edmund Spenser. Christopher Burlinson is a Fellow and College Lecturer in English at Jesus College, Cambridge. He previously held a Research Fellowship at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

Review

This is an exemplary work of scholarship * David Coleman, Cahiers Elisabethains * [an] immaculate edition of the letters ... This volume will be required reading not only for Spenser scholars but for anyone interested in early modern Ireland and the politics of Elizabethan England. * S. Brigden, English Historical Review *

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0199558213
• ISBN 13: 9780199558216
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 362
• Editor: Burlinson Christopher, Zurcher Andrew