Record Number: 32345

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'I have been reading the "Faerie Queene" in Everymans both here and at home ever since I left you.... of course it has dull and even childish passages, but on the whole I am charmed [...] I am still busy with my "heavy winged Pegasus" as you call Spenser, and still find him delightful. He is a very lotus land, a garden of Proserpine to people who like pure romance and the "stretched metre of an antique song." [...] 'I am still at the Faerie Queene.... I now think it far too good a book to get in ordinary Everyman's...' [...] 'I have at last come to the end of the Faerie Queene: and though I say "at last" I almost wish he had lived to write six more books as he had hoped to do - so much have I enjoyed it. The two cantos of "Mutabilitie" with which it ends are perhaps the finest thing in it.'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

Between 10 Sep 1915 and 7 Mar 1916

Country:

England

Time

n/a

Place:

Great Bookham
Surrey
'Gastons'

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Clive Staples Lewis

Age:

Child (0-17)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

29 Nov 1898

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Student

Religion:

Church of England

Country of Origin:

Northern Ireland

Country of Experience:

England

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Edmund Spenser

Title:

The Faerie Queene

Genre:

Poetry, Moral allegory, historical allegory

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

Dent, Everyman's Library, 1909/1910, 2 vols.

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

32345

Source:

Print

Author:

Clive Staples Lewis

Editor:

Walter Hooper

Title:

C. S. Lewis: Collected Letters

Place of Publication:

London

Date of Publication:

2000

Vol:

1

Page:

144, 151, 152, 170

Additional Comments:

(1) From a letter to Arthur Greeves, 5 October 1915 (2) From a letter to his father, 15? November 1915 (3) From a letter to Arthur Greeves, 16 November 1915 (4) From a letter to Arthur Greeves, 7 March 1916 'stretched metre...' is a quotation from Shakespeare, Sonnet 17

Citation:

Clive Staples Lewis, Walter Hooper (ed.), C. S. Lewis: Collected Letters, (London, 2000), 1, p. 144, 151, 152, 170, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=32345, accessed: 24 April 2025

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Additional Comments:

This is recreational reading, for weekends only: 'I am now nearing the end of the "Faerie Queene", and when that is done the Saturdays & Sundays will be free for something else.' (Letter to Greeves, 28 February 1916, v. 1.,p.169). He uses the standard Everyman edition until he buys a 'red leather Everyman' in late January (Letter to Greeves, 1 February 1916, v. 1., p. 161).