THE FAERIE QUEENE. With an exact Collation of the Two Original Editions, Published by Himself at London in Quarto; the Former containing the first Three Books printed in 1590, and the Latter the Six Books in 1596. To which are now added, A new Life of the Author [by Thomas Birch], and Also A Glossary. Adorn'd with thirty-two Copper-Plates, from the Original Drawings of the late W. Kent, Esq; Architect and principal Painter to his Majesty. [With,] Two Cantos of Mutabilitie: Which, Both for Forme and Matter, appeare to be a parcell of some following Booke of the Faerie Queene, under The Legend of Constancie. First Printed in the Edition at London 1609, in fol.

London: for J. Brindley, in New Bond-Street and S. Wright, Clerk of his Majesty's Works...., 1751. 3 volumes. Very Scarce First Printing of the Edition. A copy with pleasing provenance, coming from the library and with the bookplate of John Templer who was educated at Westminster School, and Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating in 1836. He was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1837.
Templer became a close friend of James Brooke through his elder brother James Lethbridge Templer (1811–1845), of the East India Company Merchant Navy. Templer acted as Brooke's legal counsel. In 1853 Templer was called to the bar, and from 1854 he was one of the Masters of the Court of Exchequer Illustrated with 32 very finely engraved full-page copper plates, and engraved head and tailpieces and initials throughout. Large, thick quartos, in very fine contemporary polished calf, the spines with raised bands gilt ruled, two compartments with fine contrasting maroon and black morocco lettering labels gilt, the remaining compartments with central gilt tooling, original endleaves. [2], lxiii, xxxvii, 453, [2]; [2], 450; [2], 440 pp An unusually fine, handsome, and beautifully bound set. The bindings are in excellent condition, and these are crisp, clean copies, especially so. Very rarely are such fine copies encountered in the marketplace. TRULY FINE COPIES OF THIS BEAUTIFUL PRINTING OF SPENSER'S FAIRIE QUEENE, ONE OF THE GREATEST WORKS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
Edmund Spenser stands with William Shakespeare and John Milton in the history of English poetry and litereature. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of modern English verse from its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the language. Spenser was known to his contemporaries as "the prince of poets” and was said by them to be "as great in English as Virgil in Latin”. He was greatly preferred over Shakespeare by Queen Elizabeth and many others of the day. He left behind his masterful essays in every genre of poetry, from pastoral and elegy to epithalamion and epic. A century later John Milton would call Spenser "a better teacher than Aquinas” and was greatly influenced by him. Since then, generations of readers have admired his subtle use of language, his imagination, his immense classical and religious learning and "his unerring ability to synthesize and, ultimately, to delight”.
THE FAERIE QUEEN is Spenser’s best known work, and arguably his best. It is especially notable for its form: it was the first work written in what is now called Spenserian stanza, and is also one of the longest poems in the English language. An allegorical work, written in praise of Queen Elizabeth I, it is largely symbolic, the poem follows several knights in an examination of several virtues. It found, not surprisingly, great political favour with Elizabeth I and was such a public success that it quickly became Spenser's defining work. The last six books of the twelve Spenser intended were never written, though two cantos noted as the Seventh and Eighth Bookes appear here.