Elijah Fenton's copy of Spenser's works (1679)
March 2022
| Journal article
| Notes and Queries
<p>Approximately fifteen years ago, I purchased at David’s booksellers in Cambridge a copy of the 1679 Folio of Spenser’s <em>Works</em>. The copy is in many respects unremarkable, having been rebound in calf at some point during the last century. It has some unusual features, however. Its preliminaries have been misbound so that sig. A4 (conjugate with sig. A1) precedes sig. A2. The engraving of Spenser’s tomb, which usually appears as a frontispiece to the volume and faces the title-page, is bound immediately after sig. A1. In the place of the usual frontispiece, this copy has George Vertue’s 1727 engraved portrait of Spenser, which has been cropped to fit the volume.<sup>1</sup> The verso of this engraving (which appears as the recto of the leaf as it is bound within the volume, since the engraving faces the title-page) bears the signature ‘E. Fenton’ (Figure 1), followed by an ornamental flourish of the pen. The copy was evidently once the property of the poet Elijah Fenton (1683–1730). After Fenton’s death in July 1730 his library was auctioned. The catalogue of the sale from February 1731 includes as its ninth item ‘Spencer’s Works, best Edit. with his Head by Vertue. 1679’.<sup>2</sup> Fenton also had portraits by Vertue bound into his copy of the 1679 Folio of Beaumont and Fletcher, which is described (item 3 in the catalogue) as including ‘their Heads by Vertue’.</p>