Stories from the Faerie Queene

by Mary Macleod

One of the masterpieces of English poetry, The Faerie Queene has influenced works from Pilgrim's Progress to The Lord of the Rings. The original text, written in the 1500's, can be hard for modern readers to follow due to its different language and spelling. This retelling by Mary Macleod allows modern readers to get straight into Spenser's intricate allegory and includes all the original text as well as all 85 images.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Fantasy, Childrens, Audiobook, Poetry, Retellings

303 pages, Hardcover

Published November 12, 2021

Reviews

[Tori Samar · Rating 4 out of 5]

These prose retellings are a good way to orient oneself to the storylines in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene. I read a section of this book before reading the corresponding FQ canto(s) and found that doing so really helped me keep my bearings. Note: Because children are the intended audience for MacLeod’s retellings, some of the more “adult” portions of the original are not included.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a great read. Gwen and I both loved it. It was admittedly hard to keep track of characters and plot lines, as it gets pretty complicated, but the stories were really compelling and thought provoking. It makes me want to attempt the real thing again one day. Having tried and failed to read it once, I think having read this simplified version first would be a big help to getting through the original.
One gripe I have is the typos. One or two I can forgive, but this copy has one every page! It needs an edit and update.

[Timilyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really appreciated having this to read & get the gist of the story & who the characters were before reading the poem proper. And my boys (turned 7 & 5 over the span we read) have an introduction too.

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book helped me so much while reading Spenser's original.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was cool. It's basically Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene put into long fairytale-style prose—so it's not an epic poem, and it's not really, really long. It's still about 80k words, though, but only one book instead of seven.

This helped immensely for me to gather the plot and story. Actually, it helps with understanding the allegory, too. I noticed a few slight differences, however, unless I imagined those (which is entirely possible). I thought I remembered Duessa taking on Una's form—but she doesn't seem to do that here. Did she ever? I'll have to check the notes I ordered on The Faerie Queene when they arrive.

Although this is condensed and made understandable in a linear non-poetic way, I wouldn't say it's particularly simplified—nor does it seem to be dramatized. You still have to pay attention, but if you do, it's pretty easy to follow (as opposed to books where it's hard to follow no matter what). I'll admit I paid a lot more attention throughout the first half of the book. Maybe I'll listen to the second half again some time—but not any time soon.

I got a lot of good insights through this book. It's a valuable resource. However, you'll get different things from the epic. For instance, this book doesn't go into all the gory descriptions of evil characters. The epic really makes them sound horrid. This book just kind of mentions them. There are other things, too, but I don't remember which ones at the moment.

Oh, heh, heh. One that just struck me is that the epic mentions leeches (meaning people who use leeches to bleed people) all over the place—it's kind of funny for a modern reader, I think, to hear a person be called a leech. I don't remember a single mention of one in this book.

I was going to give this four stars, but then I figured that since it's such a valuable resource of a sort that I had hoped to find—one that really does help—(and since it's free) then I would give it an extra star.

[Karleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love it when my child falls in love with a book. He begged for this every night and when it was over, we started again from the beginning. It is his favorite read-aloud yet. This is an exciting retelling of the stories of knights and ladies from The Faerie Queen. It was a huge hit with my fairytale-loving boy. I'm interested to read the real thing now.

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sizzling fan fiction in the Arthurian macroverse.

[Melissa Bair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read with the girls this year (they were 8 and 10). They got a beautiful taste of the Faerie Queene and heard about Una, Britomart, and Marinell and Florimell. They want to read the Mary MacLeod retelling next!

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not exactly the version I read. mine was a Naxos audiobook read by John Moffat.

The poetry is lovely to listen to, but I'm going to need lots of help from LitLife to understand any of it. They've recommended an annotated version which I may ask for for Christmas...

[Julie Mabus · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great introduction to the Faerie Queen. The kids enjoyed it and it helped me work through the first book of Spencer’s Faerie Queen.

[Susan Ayers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ready for the real Faerie Queen now!

[Diane Vint · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this alongside Spenser's Faerie Queene and it greatly helped me to understand the work!

[Katelynn]

A great read for dipping a toe into the Faerie Queen stories before making the full jump into Spencer. Read aloud for a group knight adventure.

[Red · Rating 3 out of 5]

henry purcell made a musical piece with the same name but that was an other story afterall

[Tracey Wear · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot easier read than the original.

[Jessica✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Epic, epic and epic. I only read part of the story with Britomart, but I'm currently trying to get the full version.
Update #1: Found full version, currently reading.

[Angela Bergeron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did this as a read aloud and all of my kids enjoyed it. It was a good introduction to the faerie queene and the stories were interesting.