Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, a Prose Rendering, Volume 1 of 3: A Text-Faithful Translation of the 1590s Epic Poem

by Rebecca K. Reynolds, Simon Vance (Narrator)

Genres: Classics

Audio CD

Published January 5, 2026

Reviews

[Hannah Glass · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend gifted me the chance to read this new translation/rendering of Faerie Queene.

First, this edition is beautiful. It’s 3 volumes (this is just the first volume), hardback, with beautiful thick paper, lovely font, and illustrations that pull you in and illuminate some of the more fantastic fantasy elements. There’s several illustrations included that have stuck with me. Reynolds’ footnotes are helpful and engaging; I almost wished for more! (However I am more inclined to footnotes as a whole so that’s more of a personal preference)
I think Reynolds did a wonderful job introducing the text and walking with the reader throughout it. This is definitely accessible to all ages (although I would recommend reading with a teen as there are some adult situations that would be good to discuss). As to her faithful rendering of the text, I cannot speak to much as I’ve only read snippets of the original and I’m not well-versed in Elizabethan poetry. However as a 21st century reader who enjoys Elizabethan era history and literature, poetry, and source material, I found it quite satisfying.

Second, the text itself. This is early fantasy. You can quickly identify the scenes and characters that influenced later fantasy British authors such as MacDonald, Tolkien, and Lewis. On the other hand, you can see the influences on Spenser from other texts and stories (mythology, Scripture, medieval lore, etc.). Faerie Queene does feel like such a rich example of intertextuality while also being a unique, formidable work. I confess to not being much of a fantasy person, so some of the scenes took more effort on my part to engage. It’s also a poem rendered as prose so there’s some narration element that can feel lacking, but then again it’s also a 16th century work and that’s just different altogether.

One does need a basic working knowledge of Scripture, mythology, and British history to really get into this. However Reynolds does address parts of that and it would be easy to unfold those elements while simultaneously reading.

I learned and reflected much while reading volume one as the virtues of holiness and temperance (self-control and moderation) were explored in fairy land. I think Spenser does a wonderful job of exploring the pursuit of holiness and rejection of vice and sin through such vivid imagery and storytelling.

It’ll be interesting to see how Reynolds treats the next two volumes.

[Vincent Darlage · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've wanted to read The Faerie Queene for a long time, but it is an epically long epic poem, and written in Early Modern English, the same linguistic era as William Shakespeare, but with an archaic, deliberately old-fashioned style to give the work a timeless, medieval atmosphere. Those factors combine to make it a difficult read. Along comes Rebecca K. Reynolds. She rendered the story into actual modern English, breaking up the six books of Spenser's epic into three beautiful volumes illustrated by Justin Gerard. I found the books on Kickstarter and invested in them, and it was well worth the investment. I still intend to read the original, and I am reading it as I read these translations. I'm reading a Canto at a time, first in Reynolds' prose, then I am going back to the original and reading the poem as written, with A.C. Hamilton's footnotes and glosses to glean even more meaning from the poem.

I'm not going to review Spenser's poem. It was written in the 1500s and has been reviewed by far more capable hands than I have. This is a review of this volume of Reynolds' rendering. And it is wonderful. There is a typo on page 18 ("fate" is printed as "ate"), but aside from that, I found the prose to be as faithful as it could be to the original, making it fun and enjoyable to read, instead of a lot of work. In places where she felt she may not have rendered it quite properly, she footnotes it, along with other possibilities and other readings. Indeed, she footnotes quite a bit so that the reader doesn't miss anything or misunderstand anything. She even includes commentary.

This first volume covers Book One (The Red Cross Knight) and Book Two (Sir Guyon). I look forward to reading the next two volumes after this one. If you are wanting to read The Faerie Queene and find it daunting, I highly recommend these volumes, which are now available on her website.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This is the first volume of Rebecca K. Reynolds prose retelling of Spenser. Having never read the original, I can’t speak to how successful the adaptation is. My hunch is that adapting this poetry into prose would be a bit like adapting Beowulf or Gawain and the Green Knight into prose—I feel like some of the splendour has been deflated from the original, but we will see. So far, it is a strange book and I don’t wholly like its allegorical nature, but I’ll press on. Certainly I can see its influence on Lewis and others, and especially John Bunyan. Actually, I think a young lad who enjoys Bunyan and knight adventures would be the perfect audience for this.

[Liam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was one of the major inspirations for Bunyan, and apparently also Lewis and Tolkien. Lewis’ admiration for Spencer is palpable in his descriptions of the work and what it did for his imagination as a young reader.

It was great to be able to read Spencer in modern English prose and understand everything. I’d eventually also love to read the original version.

Having said that, I wasn’t overly wowed by it. Perhaps all the power is in the poetry, and that is lost of course in this prose translation. I also heard that these first two books are the least good.. so on to the next.

[Mike]

No review, because the PDF from Netgalley had so many format issues that it was almost unreadable. I've studied this poem at university, and read another prose translation that I won as a prize at high school, so I was looking forward to it, but not enough to struggle through misplaced and missing phrases and intrusive watermarks.