Hamilton A. C. - The Spenser Encyclopedia

From its inception, The Spenser Encyclopaedia has been an entirely cooperative enterprise. When David A.Richardson first conceived the project and proposed it to me at a conference in 1977, the moment seemed to us opportune for two reasons.

First, there had been a Renaissance of sorts in Spenser criticism following an earlier period that had been monumentalized by the Johns Hopkins Variorum Edition of Spenser (193249). With pardonable exaggeration, John Erskine Hankins wrote in 1971 (he was addressing Spenser critics; others may recall that decade differently) that the 1960s will be remembered as a great period of Spenser scholarship, for then were published a record number of books about The Faerie Queen With the new critical orthodoxies emerging in the 1970s, which would generate their own scholarship, the time had come to assess both what had been done and left undone in Spenser studies by gathering into one volume the best that the present generation of critics had to say about Spenser.

Second, A Milton Encyclopaedia was about to appear, and it seemed appropriate that a similar work be compiled for the poet whom Milton had acknowledged to be his Original, especially since readers of Spenser lacked any companion or reference guide, and H.S.V.Jones Spenser Handbook was half a century out of date.

Four prerequisites seemed to me essential to the successful completion of a Spenser encyclopaedia. First, an editorial team responsible for the extended labors that would be involved in its planning and execution. That prerequisite was satisfied when David Richardson agreed to be Managing Editor if I would be the General Editor, and Donald Cheney and A.Kent Hieatt agreed to be the two Co-editors.