Portions Copyright (C) 2004 by Jonathan Barnes
This is an electronic edition of Volume One of Edmund Spenser'sFaerie 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 Gutenbergin February 2003.
Thus edition (August 2004) corrects a few errors in the convention foritalic type. A few definitions appearing in the wrong place have alsobeen fixed, as have anomalous top-bit set characters in the HalesBiography, which has been reformatted to make it easier to read.
The edition is best viewed with a monospaced font. Plain ASCIItext is used throughout. Accented, etc., characters are indicated bysymbols 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 diphthongetc.
In this way all the characters of the 1596 edition have been shownexcept the long "s", which has been throughout converted to its modernequivalent. In Roman type, the long "s" most closely resembles alower-case "f" lacking part of the crossbar. It is used in the copy-textin nearly all places where this edition has an ordinary lower-case "s",except at the ends of words and when preceding the letter "k". Usingthe oblique character in place of the long "s", then, the first lines ofthe 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, notedin the Textual Appendix: e.g. confusion between "besit" and "befit".
Special characters contained in the list of printers' contractionsare noted in the preamble to that list.
Regions of text printed, or intended to be shown, in italic type aredefined 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 byJohn W. Hales has passed out of copyright and was published by MessrsMacmillan. Copyright in all other parts of this edition, includingeditorial treatment of Spenser's Text, is reserved. You may not sell thewhole or any part of this edition in any form whatsoever, nor may yousupply it as an inducement to any party to purchase any product. Exceptfor private study, you may not alter the text in any way.
This edition is supplied as is. No warranty of any descriptio