The Faerie Queen: The Shepheards Calendar: Together With The Other Works of England's Arch-Poet,

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One of the great long poems in the English language. The First Collected Edition. VG, dated 1611, but 1615 (third re-issue of the first 1609 edition). In modern Riviere brown full morocco, to style, some blind tooling, gilt arabesque centerpieces, worn along edges. Spine, raised bands, gilt tooling & titles, worn along edges. Internally, (Faerie Queen 1611), [4], 185, [1], (The Second Part 1612), [2], 189-363, [1] (16012). [2], (The Shepheards Calender 1611), [10], 56. [2], (Mother Hubberds Tale 1613), [4], 5-16. (Colin Clouts, ND), 26. (Prothalamion, 1611), [4]. (Amoretti, 1611), 16. (Epithalamion, 1611), 6. (Foure Hymnes, 1611), 16. (Daphnaida, 1611), 10. (Complaints, 1611), 11, [1]. (The Teares, 1611, 11, [1]. (Virgils Gnat, ND), 9, [1]. (Ruines of Rome, ND), 6. (The Fate of The Butterfly, 1611), 9, [1]. Visions, ND), 8. (A letter, ND), 4 (1589). (A Vision, ND), 10. Each part with a large woodcut header & tail, cuts to each canto header & calendar month. A.E.G., Welsh armorial bookplate to fpd, new 'old' endpapers, crease to ffep, couple of tiny edge nicks. A lovely copy. (ESTC S123122. STC 23084. Pforzheimer 973). Signatures: [4], 363 pp, [1]. [2], [10], 56, [2]. [4], 5-16. [26]. [4]. [16]. [6], [16]. [10]. [12]. [28]. [32]. A third "reissue" of the 1609 edition, though both parts are now actually in later settings. Part 1, still has the 1611 cancel title page and conjugate dedication of the first reissue (STC 23083.3). The text of part 1 has now been reset (the 1615 date conjectured by STC); B3r stanza 1 begins "Young Knight". Part 2 still has separate title page dated 1612 or 1613 (stop-press variants) and R3r catchword reads "And". Pagination and register are continuous. The poem was to have been a religious-moral-political allegory in 12 books, each consisting of the adventures of a knight representing a particular moral virtue. And was presented to Queen Elizabeth 1 in 1589, probably sponsored by Walter Raleigh. Foundational edition for the study of Spenserian poetry, combining his major allegorical and pastoral works. Essential for literary historians, scholars of Elizabethan literature. (ND)