Spenser: The Faerie Queene
05/13/2019
The Faerie Queene is an epic poem by Edmund Spenser in six books, of which the first three were published in 1590, with the rest appearing in 1596. Spenser drew on Arthurian legend and contemporary Italian epic to create a poem celebrating the court of Elizabeth I, who appears in the form of the Faerie Queene herself, Gloriana, whose knights pursue a series of quests with strong allegorical elements.
The Faerie Queene at Amazon
Free online texts
Gutenberg: The Faerie Queene, Book I. HTML, EPUB, Kindle and TXT formats. See also this alternative edition.
Internet Archive: Spenser's Faerie Queene, illustrated by Walter Crane. George Allen (1895-97). EPUB, TXT, MOBI, PDF and other formats.
Internet Archive: The Faerie Queene, Vol. I | Vol. II. Clarendon Press (1909). EPUB, TXT, MOBI, PDF and other formats.
Internet Archive: The Faerie Queene, Vol. I | Vol II. Everyman's Library Edition (1910). EPUB, TXT, MOBI, PDF and other formats.
University of Adelaide (Internet Archive): The Faerie Queene. HTML, EPUB, TXT and Kindle formats.
Wikisource: The Faerie Queene - incomplete. HTML and other formats.
Other Resources
Internet Archive: Edmund Spenser and The Faerie Queene, by Leicester Bradner, University of Chicago Press (1948). EPUB, TXT, MOBI, PDF and other formats.
Librivox: The Faerie Queene | The Faire Queene (version 2) - public domain audiobooks.
Wikipedia: Edmund Spenser - The Faerie Queene
The Great Conversation: Further reading at Tom's Learning Notes
Virgil: The Aeneid.
Geoffrey of Monmouth: Prophecies of Merlin.
Ariosto: Orlando Furioso.
Tasso: Jerusalem Delivered.
John Aubrey: Brief Lives - includes a life of Spenser.
Harold Bloom's Western Canon: The Faerie Queene is listed.
Comments