The Works of Spenser

Revised Edition 1750 (1715); Printed for J. and R. Tonson and S. Draper, London. 32mo, 9 x 14cm. Uniformly bound in tree calf with  gilt decorative spines, and title and volume numbers on black. Illustrated chapter beginnings and endings. The title of Volume I reads as above, the titles of the remaining volumes read merely 'The Works of Spenser', with the volume number and imprint. 

Volume the First: 184pp; Dedication; The life of Mr. Edmund Spenser, An Essay on Allegorical Poetry; Remarks on the Fairy Queen; A Glossary; Verses to the Author of the Fairy Queen, The First Book of the Fairy Queen

Volume the Second: 359pp; The Second book of the Fairy Queen; The Third Book of the Fairy Queen

Volume the Third: 310pp; The Fourth Book of the Fairy Queen; The Fifth Book of the Fairy Queen

Volume the Fourth: 312pp; The sixth Book of the Fairy Queen; The Seventh Book of the Fairy Queen; The Shepherd’s Calendar; Colin Clout’s Come Home Again

Volume the Fifth: 287pp; Mother Hubbard’s Tale; Sonnets; Prothalomion;  Hymns (x 4); Daphnaida; The fate of the Butterfly; The Tears of the Muses; The Visions of Petrarch; The Vision of Bellay, The Ruines of Rome; Visions of the World’s Vanity; Astrophel; The Mourning Muse of  Thestylis; A Pastoral Aeglogue (sir Philip Sydney); An Elegy; An Epitaph (Sir Philip Sydney)

[Missing Volume the Sixth: 312pp; The Ruines of Time; Britain’s Ida; A View of the State of Ireland; Calendariun Pastorale Sive Aeglogae Duodecim ; Letters between Mr. Spenser and Mr. Gabriel Harvey]

Edmund Spenser (1552/1553 – 1599) was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of nascent Modern English verse, and is often considered one of the greatest poets in the English language. Spenser used a distinctive verse form, called the Spenserian stanza, in several works, including The Faerie Queene. The stanza's main meter is iambic pentameter with a final line in iambic hexameter (having six feet or stresses, known as an Alexandrine), and the rhyme scheme is ababbcbcc. He also used his own rhyme scheme for the sonnet. In a Spenserian sonnet, the last line of every stanza is linked with the first line of the next one, yielding the rhyme scheme ababbcbccdcdee. The first collected edition of his poems was published for Matthews Lownes in 1611.

John Hughes (1677-1720,) an English poet and dramatist, was the first to publish an annotated edition of the works of Spenser. His first edition appeared in 1715 (of which this is the second revised edition). Writing at the very end of 17th Century and at the beginning of the 18th, he also translated French drama and poetry, including Molière. Hughes was a favorite of the nobility and aristocracy, which probably accounted for his popularity. Subscribers to his volumes included the Dukes of Buckingham, Bedford, Bridgewater, and Buccleugh, as well as Levett Blackborne, grandson of Sir Richard Levett, Lord Mayor of London. Samuel Johnson included Hughes in his Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets in 1781, but Swift and Pope thought both his verse and prose mediocre.

Condition: The Boards of volumes 1 and 2 are detached, as is the front board of volume 3. All the boards are scuffed and the spines worn, split and in all cases missing the volume numbers. Three volumes are missing the titles. What appears to be the original owner’s bookplate is pasted to the front pastedowns of all the volumes, as does a subsequent owner’s name in ink. Some of the volumes have the ffep taped to the pastedown. However, the text blocks are tight and sound with light foxing throughout; no loose or missing pages. This set seems to be worth restoration.