‘Prosopopoeia, or Mother Hubberd's Tale,’ is in British Museum, with notes by Warton. ‘Brittain's Ida. Written by that Renowned Poet, Edmond Spencer. London, printed for Thomas Walkley,’ 1628, 8vo, dedicated to Lady Mary Villiers, is certainly not by Spenser, to whom it was fraudulently ascribed. It may be by Phineas Fletcher [q. v.], but the point is not determinable.
Meanwhile, in folio in 1611 (for Matthew Lownes), appeared the first collected edition of Spenser's poetical works. The title-page ran: ‘The Faerie Queen: The Shepheards Calendar. Together with the other works of England's Arch Poët, Edm. Spenser.’ It was reprinted in 1617–18 (folio), and a copy of this edition in the British Museum contains numerous manuscript notes by Thomas Warton. A third folio edition, ‘whereunto is added an account of his life, with other new additions never before in print,’ is dated 1679, and is believed to have been partly edited by Dryden.
The first attempt at an annotated edition of Spenser's poetry was made by John Hughes (1677–1720) [q. v.], who in 1715 brought out ‘The Works of Edmund Spenser … with a glossary explaining the old and obscure words … the life of the author, and an essay on allegorical poetry,’ 6 vols. 12mo; another edition 1750. In 1805 the Rev. Henry John Todd [q. v.] published an edition in eight volumes, ‘with the principal illustrations of various commentators.’ This was long the standard edition; but it was largely superseded by J. P. Collier's edition in 1862, and by Dr. Grosart's elaborate edition in ten volumes, privately printed, 1880–82. A useful reprint of all the works in one volume, edited by Richard Morris, with memoir by Professor J. W. Hales, appeared in 1869 (new edit. 1897).
Other collected editions, of smaller interest and utility, appeared in 1806 (with preface by John Aikin, 6 vols.), 1825 (with life by George Robinson, 5 vols.), 1839 (with life by John Mitford, 5 vols.), 1859 (ed. George Gilfillan, 5 vols. Edinburgh).
The first complete American edition appeared at Boston in 5 vols. in 1839, with notes by George Stillman Hillard, and another edition, by Professor Francis J. Child, appeared at the same place in 1855.
Since 1609 the ‘Faerie Queene’ has been published separately thirteen times, including editions by Thomas Birch [q. v.] (1751, 3 vols. 4to), by Ralph Church (1758, 4 vols. 8vo), and with illustrations by Mr. Walter Crane (1894–7). Numerous editions of single books and selections have been issued of late for educational purposes. Some barbarous attempts to paraphrase the poem include: ‘The Faerie Leveller’ (extracted from bk. v.), 1648, 4to; ‘Spencer Redivivus … his obsolete language and manner of verse totally laid aside, deliver'd in heroic numbers’ (1687, 4to); ‘Spencer's “Fairy Queen” attempted in Blank Verse: a fragment’ (1774, 4to); ‘Prince Arthur, an allegorical Romance’ (2 vols. 1779, 12mo); and ‘The “Fairy Queen,” attempted in Blank Verse’ (1783). Portions of the story have been retold in ‘Knights and Enchanters’ (prose), 1873; Mrs. Towry's ‘Spenser for Children,’ 1878; in ‘The Story of the Red Cross Knight’ (1885); in ‘Tales from Spenser chosen from the “Fairy Queen,”’ by Sophia Maclehose (1889, three editions); and in ‘Stories from the Faerie Queene’ by Miss Macleod, 1897.
Thomas James Mathias [q. v.] published Italian translations of the first book and of the unfinished seventh book of the ‘Faerie Queene’ in ‘Il cavaliero della Croce Rossa, o la legenda della Santità … recato in verso italiano detto ottava rima da T. J. Mathias’ (Naples, 1826, 8vo); and ‘La Mutabilità, poema in due canti’ (Naples, 1827, 8vo). Five cantos appeared in German in ‘Fünf Gesänge der Feenkönigin … in freier metrischer Uebertragung, von G. Schwetschke’ (Halle, 1854, 8vo).
The ‘Shepheards Calender’ was reproduced in facsimile by Mr. Oskar Sommer in 1890, and was re-edited by Professor C. H. Herford in 1895. The text was reprinted by William Morris at the Kelmscott Press in 1896, and with illustrations by Mr. Walter Crane in 1897. A Latin version by Theodore Bathurst [q. v.] appeared in 1653 (new edition 1732).
‘A View of the State of Ireland, written dialogue wise between Eudoxus and Irenæus, by Edmund Spenser, esq. … in 1596,’ was first printed somewhat inaccurately by Sir James Ware [q. v.] as an appendix to his ‘Historie of Ireland’ (1633, folio). Ware, who found the manuscript in Archbishop Ussher's library, complains of Spenser's want of moderation and the vagueness of his historical knowledge (cf. Irish Writers, ii. 327). A separate issue of Ware's version appeared at Dublin (1763, 12mo), and it was included in ‘Ancient Irish Histories’ (1809, 8vo, vol. i.). It appears in Todd's and all later collected editions of Spenser's works. Three manuscripts in the British Museum (Addit. MS. 22022, Harl. MSS. 1932 and 7388) were collated for the text of the ‘View’ in the Globe edition of the collected works.
Eight documents among the Irish State Papers, dating between 1581 and 1589, bear Spenser's signature, and one, his reply to
