The various works are arranged in the chronological order of publication thereby affording the reader a clear overview of Spenser’s public career. As the headnotes point out, however, exact dates of composition are notoriously hard to determine and it is essential to bear this in mind when considering the issue of Spenser’s artistic development. The volume of Complaints published in 1591, for example, contains revisions of material that first appeared as early as 1569. The commentary is designed to alert the reader to problems such as these while at the same time facilitating immediate comprehension of difficult passages or terms. Because Spenser is such an aggressively inter-textual writer, freely adapting, and occasionally subverting, classical, biblical and contemporary materials, I have endeavoured to supply concise references to all of the most important sources and analogues. Comparison between such passages and the Spenserian texts will generally be found to throw considerable light upon the character of Spenser’s poetic craft and intellectual outlook. The headnotes are designed to examine some of the more general problems of interpretation arising from particular works, or collections of works, and to suggest various avenues of critical approach.

As will be evident to those familiar with the history of Spenserian annotation, the commentary to the present edition is heavily reliant upon a wide range of scholarly authorities. So immensely rich is the editorial tradition that my contribution necessarily falls far short of my indebtedness, but this is very much in the nature of an exercise which seeks to consolidate past gains by a process of compilation, selection and synthesis. To edit Spenser is also to edit his editors. I acknowledge my obligations with gratitude; my errors are doubtless original. For the glossing of common nouns my single greatest debt is to the OED, valuably supplemented by C. G. Osgood, A Concordance to Spenser (1915). For classical allusions my principal sources are Natalis Comes, Mythologiae (1567), H. G. Lotspeich, Classical Mythology in the Poetry of Edmund Spenser (1942), N. G. L. Hammond and H. H. Scullard (eds.), The Oxford Classical Dictionary (1970) and Pierre Grimal, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology (1986). For plants and herbs I have drawn upon John Gerard, The Herbal or General Historie of Plantes (1597) and Nicholas Culpeper, The Complete Herbal (1653). For political, historical and miscellaneous allusions (particularly in Complaints) my work is greatly indebted, as are all recent editions of Spenser, to the editors of The Works of Edmund Spenser. A Variorum Edition (1932–58). Classical sources have generally been cited from the relevant Loeb editions, and Shakespeare’s works from the Arden editions. The Bible has been consulted in both the Genevan and King James’s versions.

Severe restrictions of space generally preclude the recording of specific attributions in the course of the commentary, but I have drawn with profit upon all of the following sources (listed in chronological order): John Jortin, Remarks on Spenser’s Poems (1734); Thomas Warton, Observations on the Faerie Queene of Spenser (1754); the collected editions of Spenser’s Works by H. J. Todd (1805); F. J. Child (1864) and A.