The Spenser Project

FAIN: RQ-50401-09

Washington University (St. Louis, MO 63130-4862)
Joseph F. Loewenstein (Project Director: November 2008 to June 2013)

Preparation, annotation, and digitization of Volumes 1 and 2 of the collected works of early modern British author Edmund Spenser. (36 months)

The Spenser Project has two main components: 1) Oxford University Press will publish The Collected Works of Edmund Spenser, prose and verse, in three volumes, re-edited from the earliest extant sources in manuscript and print; 2) The editors will construct a digital Archive containing our fully edited text, richly marked up to enable readers to examine textual features and scholarly materials in ways not possible with a print edition. The Archive will also contain facsimiles of original materials, including scans of all variant states. A fully searchable research tool, it will assist teaching, by presenting a wide range of engaging possibilities to the novice user. Taken separately, either part of this project would be a substantial contribution to teaching and research in the humanities; taken together, they will address the special challenges of editing early modern texts and make the scarce resources of research libraries and archives available for readers anywhere.