Abstract
At the end of his well-known, magisterial reading of the twenty-second stanza of the ninth canto of Book II of The Faerie Queene (1628), Sir Kenelm Digby takes a moment to apologize to his friend, Sir Edward Stradling, for his presumption in handling the text of so great a poet: And now I return to you also the Book that contains my Text, which yesterday you sent me, to fit this part of it with a Comment, which peradventure I might have performed better, if either I had afforded my selfe more time, or had had the conveniencie of some other books apt to quicken my Invention, to whom I might have been beholding for enlarging my understanding in some things that are treated here, although the Application should still have been my own: With these helps perhaps I might have dived further into the Authors Intention (the depth of which cannot be sounded by any that is lesse learned then he was).1 Digby’s sense of intellectual frustration, the need he perceives to match Spenser’s learning before he can aspire to plumb his intention, is a feeling familiar to many Spenserians. His instinctive desire for ‘the conveniencie of some other books’ attests to the long tradition of reading this difficult, profoundly intellectual poet with a range of interpretive resources to hand.
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Appendix 1: Summary census of Spenser editions, from 1569 onwards
Section 1: Editions of Spenser’s works, 1569–1679
Jan van der Noodt. 1569. A Theatre wherein be represented as wel the miseries & calamities that follow the voluptuous Worldlings, As also the greate ioyes and plesures which the faithfull do enioy, London: Henry Bynneman. [Containing verse translations by Spenser.]
Edmund Spenser. 1579. The Shepheardes Calender Conteyning tvvelue Æglogues proportionable to the twelue monethes, London: Hugh Singleton.
Three Proper, and Wittie, familiar Letters: lately passed betvvene tvvo Vniuersitie men: Touching the Earthquake in Aprill last, and our English refourmed Versifying, London: Henry Bynneman, 1580. Includes: Tvvo Other, very commendable Letters, of the same mens vvriting: both touching the foresaid Artificiall Versifying, and certain other Particulars, London: Henry Bynneman, 1580.
E. S. 1581. The Shepheardes Calender Conteining twelue Æglogues proportionable to the twelue Monethes, London: John Harrison the Younger.
E. S. 1586. The Shepheardes Calender, Conteining twelue Æglogues proportionable to the twelue Monethes, London: John Wolfe for John Harrison the Younger, 1586.
E. S. 1590. The Faerie Queene. Disposed into twelue books, Fashioning XII. Morall vertues, London: John Wolfe for William Ponsonby.
E. S. 1591. Complaints. Containing sundrie small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie, London: printed for William Ponsonby.
E. S. 1591. Daphnaïda. An Elegie vpon the death of the noble and vertuous Douglas Howard, Daughter and heire of Henry Lord Howard, Viscount Byndon, and Wife of Arthure Gorges Esquier, London: Thomas Orwin for William Ponsonby. [Reprinted 1596.]
E. S. 1591. The Shepheards Calender. Conteining twelue Aeglogues proportionable to the twelue Monethes, London: John Windet for John Harrison the Younger.
E. S. 1595. Amoretti and Epithalamion, London: Peter Short for William Ponsonby.
E. S. 1595. Colin Clouts Come home againe, London: Thomas Creede for William Ponsonby.
E. S. 1596. The Faerie Queene. Disposed into twelue bookes, Fashioning XII. Morall vertues, London: Richard Field for William Ponsonby. Usually found with E. S. 1596. The Second Part of The Faerie Queene. Containing The Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Bookes, London: Richard Field for William Ponsonby.
E. S. 1596. Fowre Hymnes, London: Richard Field for William Ponsonby. [Including a second edition of Daphnaïda.]
E. S. 1596. Prothalamion Or A Spousall Verse made by Edm. Spenser. In Honour of the double mariage of the two Honorable & vertuous Ladies, the Ladie Elizabeth and the Ladie Katherine Somerset, Daughters to the Right Honourable the Earle of Worcester and espoused to the two worthie Gentlemen M. Henry Gilford, and M. William Peter Esquyers, London: Printed for William Ponsonby.
E. S. 1597. The Shepheards Calender: Conteyning Twelue Aeglogues, proportionable to the twelue Moneths, London: Thomas Creede for John Harrison the Younger.
E. S. 1609. The Faerie Queene, Disposed into XII. Bookes, Fashioning twelue Morall Vertues, London: Humphrey Lownes for Matthew Lownes.
E. S. 1611–17. The Faerie Queen: The Shepheards Calendar: Together With The Other Works of England’s Arch-Poët, Edm. Spenser: Collected into one Volume, and carefully corrected, London: Humphrey Lownes for Matthew Lownes. [Including reprintings of constituent elements.]
E. S. 1633. A View Of the State Of Ireland, Written dialogue-wise betweene Eudoxus and Irenæus, ed. by Sir James Ware, Dublin: The Society of Stationers.
Theodore Bathurst, transl. 1653. Calendarium Pastorale, Sive Æglogæ Duodecim, Totidem Anni Mensibus accommodatæ [The Shepherds Calendar, Containing Twelve Æglogues, Proportionable to the Twelve Months], London: M.M.T.C. and Gabriel Bedell.
E. S. 1679. The Works Of that Famous English Poet, Mr. Edmond Spenser. Viz. The Faery Queen, The Shepherds Calendar, The History of Ireland, & c. Whereunto is added, An Account of his Life; With other new Additions Never before in Print, London: Henry Hills for Jonathan Edwin.
Section 2: Major editions of Spenser’s works, 1715–1932
Hughes, J. ed. 1715. The Works of Mr Edmund Spenser. In six volumes. With a Glossary Explaining the Old and Obscure Words, London: Jacob Tonson.
Birch, Thomas D. D. ed. 1751. The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser, with an exact Collation of the two Original Editions . . . to which are now added a new life of the author and also a glossary adorn’d with thiry-two copper plates from the original drawings of the late W. Kent, 3 vols, London: Printed for J. Brindley and S. Wright.
Upton, J. ed. 1758. Spenser’s Faerie Queene. A New Edition with a Glossary, And Notes explanatory and critical, 2 vols, London: Printed for J. and R. Tonson.
Church, R. ed. 1758. The Faerie Queene of Edmund Spenser, 4 vols, London.
Todd, H. J. ed. 1805. The Works of Edmund Spenser. In eight volumes. With the principal illustrations of various commentators. To which are added, notes, some account of the life of Spenser, and a glossarial and other indexes, 8 vols, London: Printed for F. C. and J. Rivington, T. Payne, Cadell and Davies, and R. H. Evans.
Child, F. J. ed. 1855. The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser. The text carefully revised, and illustrated with notes, original and selected, 5 vols, Boston: Little, Brown, and Co.
Gilfillan, G. ed. 1859. The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser. With memoir and critical dissertations, 5 vols, Edinburgh: J. Nichol.
Collier, J. P. ed. 1562. The Works of Edmund Spenser, 5 vols, London: Bell and Daldy.
Morris, R. and J. W. Hales, eds 1869. The Globe edition [of the] Complete Works of Edmund Spenser edited from the original editions and manuscripts . . . with a memoir, London: Macmillan and Co.
Grosart, A. B. ed. 1882–84. The Complete Works in Verse and Prose of Edmund Spenser, 8 vols, London: privately printed.
Warren, Kate M. ed. 1897–1900. The Faerie Queene .. . edited from the original editions of 1590 and 1596, with introduction and glossary, 6 vols, London: Constable & Co.
Dodge, R. E. N. ed. 1908. The Complete Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Boston: The Cambridge Edition of the Poets.
Smith, J. C. and Ernest de Sélincourt, The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, 3 vols, London: Oxford University Press, 1909–12.
Renwick, W. L. ed. 1930–32. The Works of Edmund Spenser, 8 vols, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Greenlaw, E., C. G. Osgood, and F. M. Padelford, et al., eds 1932–49. The Works of Edmund Spenser, A Variorum Edition, 11 vols Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
Section 3: Selected editions of Spenser’s works, 1932-Present
Ed. by A. C. Hamilton, London: Longman, 1977. [A reprinting of J. C. Smith’s 1909 text, buttressed by copious same-page New Critical annotation.]
Ed. by Thomas P. Roche, Jr., with the assistance of C. Patrick O’Donnell, Jr., London: Penguin Books, 1978. [An unmodernised text based on the early quartos, carefully annotated, with useful but not exhaustive textual notes.]
Ed. by A. C. Hamilton et al., London: Longman, 2001. [A revised, unmodernised text based on the early quartos, and 1609 folio, of the poem, framed by the same elaborate annotation as the first edition.]
The Shepheardes Calender, etc.
The Yale Edition of the Shorter Poems of Edmund Spenser, ed. by William A. Oram, Einar Bjorvand, Ronald Bond, Thomas H. Cain, Alexander Dunlop, and Richard Schell, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. [An unmodernised text of Spenser’s complete shorter poems, based on the original editions; carefully and faithfully laid out, and well annotated.]
E. S., Selected Shorter Poems, ed. by Douglas Brooks-Davies, London: Longman, 1995. [A modernised text based on the original editions; excellent annotations with a particular emphasis on Spenser’s Platonism.]
E. S., The Shorter Poems, ed. by Richard McCabe, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1999. [An unmodernised text of Spenser’s complete shorters poems, built from a comparison of de Sélincourt’s 1910 Oxford edition with the early quartos of individual works; scrupulously edited and copiously annotated. Apart from the pulp-paperback format, this is now the best affordable edition of Spenser’s shorter poems.]
A View of the Present State of Ireland
A View of the State of Ireland, From the first printed edition (1633), ed. by Andrew Hadfield and Willy Maley, Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. [A faithful edition of Ware’s 1633 text, with helpful prefatory material and appendices, including an annotated guide to further reading.]
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Zurcher, A. (2006). Texts and Resources. In: van Es, B. (eds) A Critical Companion to Spenser Studies. Palgrave Advances. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230524569_13
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