A NOTE ON THIS EDITION
This is an electronic edition of Volume One of Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene. You are encouraged to use and copy it.
The edition includes the following elements:
- an entirely new composite text, based on the edition of 1596 (the "Original Text")
- details of departures, or proposed departures, from the copy text (the "Textual Appendix")
- a modernized version of the Original Text (the "Shadow Text")
- definitions of difficult words and phrases in the Shadow Text (the "Glossary").
The Original Text was not scanned, but typed, and proofed against the
Scolar Press facsimile (see Bibliography). Editing took place between
November 1989 and July 1992, using EMACS.
Edition 10 (faeri10.txt) was prepared especially for Project Gutenberg in February 2003.
Thus edition (August 2004) corrects a few errors in the convention for italic type. A few definitions appearing in the wrong place have also been fixed, as have anomalous top-bit set characters in the Hales Biography, which has been reformatted to make it easier to read.
The edition is best viewed with a monospaced font. Plain ASCII text is used throughout. Accented, etc., characters are indicated by symbols contained in curly brackets, e.g.:
{e/} = lower-case e + acute accent (pointing up to right) {e\} = lower-case e + grave accent (pointing up to left) {o^} = lower-case o + circumflex accent {o"} = lower-case o + diaeresis mark {e~} = lower-case e + tilde {ae} = lower-case ae diphthong {Ae} = ae diphthong with initial capital {AE} = fully capitalized ae diphthong etc.
In this way all the characters of the 1596 edition have been shown except the long "s", which has been throughout converted to its modern equivalent. In Roman type, the long "s" most closely resembles a lower-case "f" lacking part of the crossbar. It is used in the copy-text in nearly all places where this edition has an ordinary lower-case "s", except at the ends of words and when preceding the letter "k". Using the oblique character in place of the long "s", then, the first lines of the poem read:
Lo I the man, who/e Mu/e whilome did maske,
As time her taught in lowly Shepheards weeds,
Am now enfor/t a far vnfitter taske,
For trumpets /terne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds …
These rules are on occasion broken, apparently by mistake. The long "s" does nothing to aid comprehension, and indeed causes problems, noted in the Textual Appendix: e.g. confusion between "besit" and "befit".
Special characters contained in the list of printers' contractions are noted in the preamble to that list.
Regions of text printed, or intended to be shown, in italic type are defined by underscores, thus: the second word is in italics.
Spenser's original text of The Faerie Queene is here described as "Spenser's Text" and is in the public domain. The biography by John W. Hales has passed out of copyright and was published by Messrs Macmillan. Copyright in all other parts of this edition, including editorial treatment of Spenser's Text, is reserved. You may not sell the whole or any part of this edition in any form whatsoever, nor may you supply it as an inducement to any party to purchase any product. Except for private study, you may not alter the text in any way.
WARRANTY
This edition is supplied as is. No warranty of any description is given in relation to the edition. Time and care have gone into its preparation, but no guarantee of accuracy is implied or made.
In such a large work, despite the stringent and repeated manual and electronic checking that has been carried out, some errors are bound to have slipped through. Please tell me about any that you find. All readers' emendations will be gratefully acknowledged in future releases.
— Jonathan Barnes
jonathan.barnes[at]conexil.co.uk 20 August 2004
Main components:
Editor's Introduction
Abbreviations Used
List of Proper Nouns
Table of Contents of Volume I
Introductory Matter
Books I-III
Printer's Contractions
Bibliography
Biographical Material
The start of each of these is marked with the string "=>"
=> THE FAERIE QUEENE
Editor's Introduction
Acknowledgements
Purpose of the edition
The text of the poem
The form of the poem
The numbering system
How the Glossary works
The Textual Appendix
Suggestions for new readers