Oct 13, 2022 - Sale 2617

Sale 2617 - Lot 258

Price Realized: $ 37,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000
Spenser, Edmund (1552?-1599)
The Faerie Queene. Disposed into Twelve Bookes, Fashioning XII. Morall Vertues. [and] The Faerie Queene, Second Part.

London: Printed for William Ponsonbie, 1590-[1596].



First editions of both parts, two quarto volumes bound in one; first part one of three issues with slight differences, the present copy with the dedication on the verso of the title page signed "Ed. Spenser," and the first digit of imprint date lined up under the first "i" of "William" in the imprint; illustrated with full-page woodcut of Saint George slaying the dragon in the first part; leaf T1 in the first volume cut through horizontally, with a perfect example of the same leaf supplied from another copy and tipped in just before the slit leaf; dedicatory verses at end of the first volume likely added later from another copy (signature Qq); spaces left open for Welsh words; headlines, catchwords, and some signature marks occasionally cropped; ex libris Marianne Ford, with her bookplate, signature of Fanny Hughes, 1893; and James Ford, 1849; purchased from Stonehill bookstore in New Haven in 1971; the set bound in uniform late 18th or early 19th century roan, recently rebacked, and housed in custom chemises and a dark blue half morocco double slipcase; each volume 7 x 5 in. (2)

I: STC 23081a; ESTC S123180; II: STC 23082; ESTC S117748.

From the Ken Rapoport Collection.