Welcome to Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. Our text-faithful, line-by-line prose rendering of Spenser’s epic poem introduces new readers to Spenser’s enthralling world of monsters, enchanted forests, witches, and brave but fumbling knights.
Many have attempted to read Spenser’s original work, only to be discouraged by his diction. This struggle is understandable, as Spenser often used language more archaic than the time in which he wrote. To help readers overcome this struggle, classical educator Rebecca K. Reynolds worked with Elizabethan scholars to produce an annotated rendering which moves from heavy assistance in Book One toward more of Spenser’s language in Book Six.
Enjoy the beauty and depth of Spenser’s stories as you read this series, and graduate ready to tackle Spenser’s original text. Grab a cuppa and a deep chair, settle back, and discover the beloved old epic poem that has inspired poets and novelists for over four hundred years.
“The Faerie Queene never loses a reader it has once gained. . . Once you have become an inhabitant of its world, being tired of it is like being tired of London, or of life.”
C.S. Lewis
“Reynolds’s new rendering of The Faerie Queene was made for people like me—for those of us who time and again have heard of Spenser’s great poem but were too intimidated to read it. We’re drawn to the feeling of adventure, mystery, danger, and beauty conjured merely by mention of the title, but fear that maybe we aren’t smart enough or wise enough or brave enough to enter in to a old tale so revered by so many. Enter Rebecca Reynolds’s incredible mind and mastery of language, coupled with hospitality toward the reader; enter also Justin Gerard, a master artist whose gifts are perfectly suited to a vision like Spenser’s. Rather than turned away at the door to elfland, I found myself welcomed in to its wonders by Reynolds’s clear and careful handling of the original text—along with her generous footnotes and Gerard’s stunning illustrations—and was at once surrounded by knights and warhorses, dwarves and dragons, high beauties and heavy skies. This book does a great service not just to Edmund Spenser, but to those of us who will encounter this grand story for the first time.”
Andrew Peterson
Author of The Wingfeather Saga
“The Faerie Queene is one of the most vivid stories ever written in English—intricate and kinetic and forceful all at the same time. Rebecca Reynolds’s faithful rendering makes Edmund Spenser’s epic available to a whole new audience of twenty-first-century readers. And Justin Gerard’s vibrant illustrations are a reminder that The Faerie Queene is the great-grandparent of every fantasy novel you ever loved.”
Jonathan Rogers
PhD in 17th Century Literature
Author of the Wilderking Trilogy
VOLUME ONE
BOOKS ONE AND TWO
VOLUME TWO
BOOKS THREE AND FOUR
