Edited Henry John Todd (2 results)

First Edition. 220 pages + 6 at front +2 pages ads at rear. green binding with impressed gilt titles in good condition, .contents good, most pages mint, owners signiture to front, a few very neat pencil notes to edge. 13 x 20cm Approx.

Leather. Condition: Very Good. None (illustrator). A set of the poetical works of Edmund Spenser, widely regarded as one of the greatest English poets. Containing all his best-known poetry, including The Faerie Queen, April and Astrophel. Spenser's masterpiece is an extensive poem The Faerie Queene. The first three books of The Faerie Queene were published in 1590, and a second set of three books were published in 1596. This extended epic poem deals with the adventures of knights, dragons, ladies in distress, etc. yet it is also an extended allegory about the moral life and what makes for a life of virtue. With engraved frontispiece of Spenser to Volume I. Spenser was called a Poet's Poet and was admired by William Wordsworth, John Keats, Lord Byron and Alfred Lord Tennyson, among others. The language of his poetry is purposely archaic, reminiscent of earlier works such as The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer and Il Canzoniere of Francesco Petrarca, whom Spenser greatly admired. Spenser's Epithalamion is the most admired of its type in the English language. It was written for his wedding to his young bride, Elizabeth Boyle. The poem consists of 365 long lines, corresponding to the days of the year; 68 short lines, representing the sum of the 52 weeks, 12 months, and 4 seasons of the annual cycle; and 24 stanzas, corresponding to the diurnal and sidereal hours. Complete in eight volumes. Rebound in half-morocco bindings with marbled boards and original spine labels. Externally smart, with some minor wear to the spines and some sunfading to the boards. Internally, firmly bound. Institutional stamps to recto of front free-endpaper. Pages are spotted, with some foxing throughout. Very Good. book.