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SPENSER.

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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1839, by

CHARLES C. LITTLE AND JAMES BROWN,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

STEREOTYPED AT THE
BOSTON TYPE AND STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY.

PREFACE.

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THE present edition of Spenser is intended for popular use, and the professed scholar will find little in it that is It has been undertaken in compliance with a wish of the publishers to offer to the American public the works of this great poet at a moderate price, and accompanied with such notes and explanations as might remove, in some measure, the difficulties which have kept many from attempting to read him. The edition published by Pickering, in 1825, was taken for the basis of the present one, and the Life of Spenser contained in it has been republished in this. The Introductory Observations upon the "Faerie Queene," the glossarial and explanatory notes, have been added by the present editor. The obsolete and difficult words have been explained at the bottom of each page, which plan seems preferable to that of putting them into a glossary by themselves. The flavor of a fine passage is apt to evaporate while the reader is looking for the meaning of a word at the end of the volume, or perhaps in another book. The notes have been made with a view of explaining every thing that required it, and in as few words as possible.

Ample use has been made of the labors of previous editors, though a considerable number of the notes are original. The edition by Henry James Todd, published in London

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