Edmund Spenser's the Faerie Queene: A Reading Guide

The Faerie Queene. Disposed into twelue books, Fashioning XII. Morall vertues (London: John Wolfe for William Ponsonby, 1590).

The first quarto edition of the poem, including only Books I–III.

The Faerie Queene. Disposed into twelue bookes, Fashioning XII. Morall vertues, 2 pts (London: Richard Field for William Ponsonby, 1596).

The second quarto edition of the poem, including a slightly revised text of Books I–III and the first printing of Books IV–VI.

The Faerie Queene (London: Humphrey Lownes for Matthew Lownes, 1609). The first posthumous edition of the poem, printed in folio format and including Two Cantos of Mutabilitie (provenance unknown).

The Faerie Queen: The Shepheards Calendar: Together with the Other Works of England’s Arch-Poët, Edm. Spenser (London: Matthew Lownes, 1611–17).

The famous first folio edition of Spenser’s complete works – also the first folio edition of a modern English poet produced in the period.

The Works of Edmund Spenser: A Variorum Edition, ed. Edwin Greenlaw, Charles Grosvenor Osgood, Frederick Morgan Padelford, et al., 11 vols (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1932–45).

A complete text of Spenser’s collected works, with The Faerie Queene in six volumes. Each volume includes the text, a survey of critical approaches (to c. 1940), and useful appendices on formal, biographical and historical matters. Available through LION (see below).

The Faerie Queene, ed. Thomas P. Roche, Jr (London: Penguin, 1978).

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