Art Books

Images from Edmund Spenser’s “The Faerie Queene”

---

Books 1 & 2	“The Legend of the Knight of the Red Crosse” or “Of Holinesse” and “The Legend of Sir Guyon” or “Of Temperaunce”.
Books 3 & 4	“The Legend of Britomartis” or “Of Chastity” and “The Legend of Cambel and Telamond” or “Of Friendship”.
Books 5 & 6	“The Legend of Artegall” or “Of Justice” and “The Legend of Sir Calidore” or “Of Courtesie” and “Two Cantos of Mutabilitie” or “Of Constancie”

---

Spenser’s Elizabethan-era allegorical poem was originally intended to run to 12 books, depicting 12 moral virtues that would fashion a virtuous man. He published the first three books, depicting Holiness, Temperance and Chastity, in 1590. They were republished along with the next three books, depicting Friendship, Justice and Courtesy, in 1596. Two fragments of a seventh book, known as the “Cantos of Mutabilitie”, were published after his death.

In the volumes below, a key event from each of the twelve Cantos of each book is illustrated by an original oil painting on a 10”x8” canvas. The main plot of each Canto is summarised and selected stanzas related to the depicted event are quoted from the poem, based on the 1596 text.

An appendix in each volume shows thumbnail images of the development of each painting, along with design notes.

---

This is a composite volume with the same illustrations as in the single-book volumes above, with scenes from:

Book 1 – “The Legend of the Knight of the Red Crosse” or “Of Holinesse” and from

Book 2 – “The Legend of Sir Guyon” or “Of Temperaunce”.

Preview of some representative pages of the book here:

---

This volume illustrates scenes from:

Book 3 – “The Legend of Britomartis” or “Of Chastity” and from

Book 4 – “The Legend of Cambel and Telamond” or “Of Friendship”.

Preview of some representative pages of the book here:

---

---

This volume illustrates scenes from:

Book 5 – “The Legend of Artegall” or “Of Justice”.

Book 6 – “The Legend of Sir Calidore” or “Of Courtesie”.

and “Two Cantos of Mutabilitie” or “Of Constancie”

---

---

---

---

---

---

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 -1834)

Coleridge, along with Wordsworth, was a formative poet of the Romantic Movement in England.

In 1795 he met Dorothy and William Wordsworth and in 1797-8 he was living as their near neighbour in Nether Stowey in Somerset.  In 1798 he and Wordsworth published Lyrical Ballads, which included The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

In 1798 he and Wordsworth travelled in Germany, and Coleridge became interested in German philosophy, particularly Kant, and literary criticism of Lessing.

Christabel is an unfinished poem: part I was started in about 1797, part II was finished in 1800. Three further parts were planned, but not completed and a conclusion written  in 1801. It was first published in 1816, in a collection of three poems, along with Kubla Khan and The Pains of Sleep.

---

---

---

---

An “alphabet book” for grown-ups. In 26 double spread layouts, from A-Z, a figure from Graeco-Roman myth is depicted in contemporary setting, along with a stylised “greek urn” image and literary extract.

---