[Rarebooks] fa: EDMUND SPENSER - THE WORKS 1679 - Folio/First Edition thus

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, November 13. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/hgtr79z

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Edmund Spenser: 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. Licensed, October 24th 1678. Roger L’Estrange. London: Printed by Henry Hills for Jonathan Edwin, at the Three Roses in Ludgate-street, 1679. First edition thus. Folio (32.5 cm) in later but not recent paneled calf; [10], 339, [1], 16, [8], 1-2, 10-11, 9-258, 369-391, [3] pp. (pagination is erratic but the text is continuous). With the engraved frontispiece and terminal leaf of publisher's adverts. Wing S4965; Pforzheimer 980; ESTC R7177.

The second folio edition of Spenser's works (and the third of The Faery Queen), but the first thus, with a Life of the author and "other new Additions." Several of the works with separate title-pages dated 1678. "In type and general appearance this edition is an improvement over the previous folios. It includes material not found in them: an engraving of the poet's tombstone with the inscription as it then read, a brief laudatory 'life,' Phineas Fletcher's imitation, Britain's Ida, first published in 1628 by Thomas Walkey, who was 'assured' that it was a work of Spenser's, an opinion from which the editor of the folio apparently does not dissent since he makes no comment, A View of Ireland with Ware's notes omitted, Bathurst's Latin version of the Shepheardes Calender, and an abridged text of the Harvey-Spenser correspondence, subjoined as a testimonial of Spenser's 'Familiarities with the most Ingenious and Learned men of those Times'" (Jewel Wurtsbaugh, Two Centuries of Spenserian Scholarship). The editorship has been attributed, probably erroneously, to Dryden.

Binding rubbed, pitted and worn, front and rear boards detached; toning and dust-soiling to the edges of the text block, leaves with a few scattered small spots and touches of soiling, but internally very good, generally quite clean and crisp, firmly bound. Front (blank) flyleaf with the ink inscription: "George I. Cornish… Oxon 1815 to John Tucker[?] Dec. 10th 1816."