Record Number: 32345
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
Timen/a
Place:Great Bookham
Surrey
'Gastons'
(Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
(Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Reader / Listener / Reading Group:
Reader: 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
Text Being Read:
Author: Title:The Faerie Queene
Genre:Poetry, Moral allegory, historical allegory
Form of Text:Print: Book
Publication DetailsDent, Everyman's Library, 1909/1910, 2 vols.
Provenanceunknown
Source Information:
Record ID:32345
Source: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
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).