The Faerie Queene

This edition has the entire 8 books included in it.The easily referenced notes were fabulous and not onerous.A good word glossary is also placed at the end.Zoom Books delivered on time and the book was basically new. I was stunned by what value I received.

For those who are looking for an older take on series fantasy, look no further. The Faerie Queene is often praised for its beautiful use of language and for the fact that it was the first great epic written in the English language, but don't let that high and lofty praise scare you away! Someone who goes into it looking to be entertained won't be dissapointed, provided they're willing to work for it a little bit.At first, the archaic language can be a little difficult to understand, but I found that I very quickly adapted to it so that I was reading it nearly as quickly as I'd read a novel, and I wasn't having to look in the margins for the definitions of strange words. And then the story started to come alive! The Faerie Queene has it all -- knights, maidens in distress, maidens who kick butt (one of the hero knights, Britomart, is a woman and also a very capable warrior) evil wizards, dark temptresses, and monsters galore. Many villains recurr throughout the books, tormenting one knight and then another, so that when Duessa shows up for the upteenth time, you already know enough about her to be emotionally invested in seeing her defeated ;)I was surprised by how much character development the various characters showed, from Redcrosse's slow journey into spirituality to Artegall's gradual temperance of cold justice with mercy. Britomart's unrequited love for Artegall was genuinely moving.But what Spenser does best is description. He very quickly establishes scenes that are so clear and vivid that you'll be able to smell the air and see even the quality of the sunlight.All in all, I highly recommend this book. I was pretty sad when I got to the end, because I'm going to miss my nightly forays into Spenser's arcadian world. This is an extremely good book.

Spenser's craft in verse is something truly magical. When thinking on him, I analyse lines I remember in my head and try to figure out "why is he so damn great? I can't put out anything specific...." But when reading his verse, it seems to flow into the spiritual capacity, a weaving of impeccable rhythm and rime. This, the Faerie Queene, is truly amongst the greatest treasures of English Verse. Not only the verse, but the entertaining adventures he tells of are indeed genuine literature in themselves. If the reading seems difficult, you're thinking about it too hard, and banging your head against what looks like archaic vocabulary. Honestly the spread of "archaic" words is not exceptionally dense (from what I notice at least), its often how he uses the words, and yes oftentimes the spelling will throw off a reader not acquainted with medieval literature, but as I said - don't think about it too hard. It will fall into place. If it doesn't hit you right away, give it a little bit, give it a few tries - whether its the first sitting or the fourth, its beauty will become plain and you will understand in an inexplicable way, as we all understand without really knowing why, how deft the poetic touch of Edmund Spenser was.Everything to praise Spenser has pretty much been said by others and myself above. The editor has done a great job, his glossary could've been a tad expanded to include a few more entries, but the annotations are full and satisfying.

This is a review of the Kindle edition, viewed on a PC.I believe that for a less than $3 book, the other two reviews were being unfair. The claim that there was but one line drawn illustration was plainly wrong. I paged through 40% of the book and found at lest 8 pictures, all but one or two were color photographs. They weren't great, but they were color illustrations.At this point in the Book reader technology, you simply do not buy a book for high fidelity to its printed version. In many, many cases, lots of things are simply left out. For example, my printed copy of the Qu'ran has the Arabic and many comments. The Kindle version of the same edition has only the bare English translation. So, I have both. And if I need to search The Fairy Queene for the word "blatant" (which is why I bought it), I can do that with 100% accuracy, and find its contexts.So, for the same reason I have two copies of the Iliad (Lattimore and Fagles translations) and a copy of Fagles on CD (by Derek Jacoby) I have multiple copies of The Fairy Queen for different purposes.

The recording demonstrates the full beauty of this magnificent poem. An ideal way to first encounter this marvelous crestion.

A standard edition of Edmund Spenser's great unfinished epic, recommended for those who relish a world of moral imperatives for our relativistic age. A fine introduction and ample notes support this text in which--as all his readers know--Queen Elizabeth I is the paragon of all the virtues probed in this masterpiece of its age. Spenser's mastery of metrics is astonishing, his allegory an adventure into a world not our own.

This is an impressive book.The mixture of older middle English with newer spellings can be a harder/messierread than either modernized English or the original middle English.But with that aside, the beauty of Spenser's description of natural items isunsurpassed. He enjoys rambling about his subjects ... creating an item that islonger than it could be (his Courtier instincts perhaps ?).These are ways to improve the Kindle version :1. Page numbers please. I've seen other Kindle books with page numbers inserted.When the professor says ... on page x, I'm at a loss (without the paperback) asto where that might be.2. Please link the end notes into where they are referenced. That is the mainreason for e-book purchases - linked content - and was disheartened to not findthat in this book.

Oh, what a read! Written and spelled as in Tudor times, it takes a bit of getting used to but once you've got into the swing of it all the verses scan and read perfectly. You soon get used to pronouncing words such as,say, armoured as "armour red in ordered tokeep the rhythm flowing and the glossary at the end of the book can be easily followed as you read, especially if two bookmarks are used; one to keep your place in the text and the other for the glossary.The knights are bold, brave and with their reputation and honour being all that they live for. Their damsels are both chaste and chased. The second of these by various monsters, evil magicians and lustful knights who don't know the rules of knightly chivalry.The witches and magicians are a thoroughly bad lot and the description of the wicked witch, Duessa, after she is stripped naked is not to be read just before or just after a meal. It is truly stomach churning. The monsters are equally horrible and probably had to be to hold the interest of those for whom burning at the stake and hanging, drawing and quartering were an enjoyable and regular public entertainment. Don't forget that this work was written in the reign of Elizabeth Tudor when such things were available on an almost weeekly basis.This Penguin classic has over a thousand pages of nine line verses, four to a page, and if that sounds like something for only scholars and nerds, think again. Boring it aint!Dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, Sir Walter Raleigh and one or two others whom Spenser thought might be usefully flattered, it is a monumental work and, had Spenser lived longer than his forty seven years, he might not have left it only half finished.I know that I shall return to this book over and over again.Eric Hulme.

The literature of Spenser, unlike that of Shakespeare or other contemporaries, is almost always printed with the exact spelling found at at time. I guess this could throw a lot of people off course, but it really is just one of the many amazing elements of this book. As well as the fantastic and fabulous content, the reader becomes aware and synchronised with the linguistic element of such poetic beauty as well.As an English student, I'm probably slightly biased about the accessibility of the book, but I'd only read a handful of plays from the late 1500s and early 1600s before launching into it. Although being vaguely familar with the syntax of the period, it was unlike anything I'd looked at previously.But whether you intend to read the whole book from front to cover, or just dip into a few pages to experience the sheer poetic genius and brilliance, you'll experience great pleasure in doing so. It's also great to see this as a paperback version - although it's relatively large, it is portable (if that makes sense).

Wow! Why did they never teach this in school? This could have been a treasure throughout my life rather than just discovering it in my seventies! Bad education!

not bad condition ok

This great English epic will take you on a magical journey, over vale and hill, through spooky forests, and frankly weird gardens. Exploding monsters, love, lust, blood and gore and other such things make you wonder what Spencer was taking while he wrote this poem.Read it. All of it.