David and everyone,
With respect to the question of *when* Spenser may have read to the court,
or to Elizabeth, if indeed it ever happened, it may be helpful to remember
that some variants of the 1590 edition of _The Faerie Queene_ do not
include the full-page dedication to Elizabeth (signed 'Ed. Spenser') on
the verso of the title page. If F. R. Johnson is right, in _A Critical
Bibliography of the Works of Edmund Spenser Printed Before 1700_, in his
hypothesis that the sheets for this gathering were perfected in reverse
order (i.e. that the inner forme, containing the blank/dedication page
was printed first, and the outer forme, containing the title page itself
was printed second, but in reverse order such that the earliest state of
the inner forme was joined to the latest state of the outer forme), it may
just be that the dedication to Elizabeth was inserted into the text at an
early stage of the printing. It is hard to imagine what might have
emboldened the hitherto anonymous poet to make such a grandiose, signed
dedication on the reverse of his title page, besides the explicit
authorization or extension of favor of a supportive monarch.
The relevant passage from Johnson is on page 15:
(c) Of the copies of the 1590 Faerie Queene existing today, the Harmsworth
copy seems to be unique in having the verso of the title-page blank,
without the dedication to Queen Elizabeth. A few other copies probably
existed at one time having this peculiarity, for this feature of certain
copies is noted in the _Bibliotheca Anglo-Poetica_, (London, 1815), p.
303. Note also the somewhat defective copy sold at Sotheby's on February
17, 1914, Lot 797, which was described as having the dedication to Queen
Elizabeth cut out and pasted on the verso of the title-page, which had
originally been blank. A check of the textual readings fo the Harmworth
copy reveals that it possesses the later, corrected state of most of the
sheets making up the volume. Furthermore, the title-page in this copy,
which belongs to the outer forme of the same sheet, has the date widely
spaced [i.e. 1 5 9 0, not 1590, as in the apparently first state of the
impression of the outer forme. -az], which in all probability represents
the _later_ state of that forme. If this is true, what we have in the
Harmsworth wopy is the earlier state of the inner forme of the outer sheet
of the A quire, combined with the later state of the outer forme of the
same sheet. This combination is what might be expected if the sheets were
perfected in reverse order, causing the first sheets printed of the inner
forme to be the last to be perfected.
andrew
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Andrew Zurcher
Gonville & Caius College
Cambridge CB2 1TA
United Kingdom
tel: +44 1223 335 427
hast hast post hast for lyfe
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