The Illustrated Faerie Queene

by Douglas Arthur Hill (Adapter), Edmund Spenser

Follows the adventures of Twelve Knights each an example of a different virtue as they undertake difficult quests for their queen. Heavily illustrated.

Genres: Fiction

192 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1980

About the author

Douglas Arthur Hill (6 April 1935 – 21 June 2007) was a Canadian science fiction author, editor and reviewer. He was born in Brandon, Manitoba, the son of a railroad engineer, and was raised in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. An avid science fiction reader from an early age, he studied English at the University of Saskatchewan (where he earned an Honours B.A. in 1957) and at the University of Toronto. He married fellow writer and U. of S. alumna Gail Robinson in 1958; they moved to Britain in 1959, where he worked as a freelance writer and editor for Aldus Books. In 1967–1968 he served as Assistant Editor of the controversial New Worlds science fiction magazine under Michael Moorcock.

A lifetime leftist, he served from 1971 to 1984 as the Literary Editor of the socialist weekly Tribune (a position once held by George Orwell), where he regularly reviewed science fiction despite the continued refusal of the literary world to take it seriously. Before starting to write fiction in 1978, he wrote many books on history, science and folklore. Using the pseudonym Martin Hillman, he also worked as an editor of several anthologies, among them Window on the Future (1966), The Shape of Sex to Come (1978), Out of Time (1984), and Hidden Turnings (1988). He is probably best known for The Last Legionary quartet of novels, supposedly produced as the result of a challenge by a publisher to Hill's complaints about the lack of good science fiction for younger readers.

Hill and his wife had one child, a son. They were divorced in 1978. He lived in Wood Green, London, and died in London after being struck by a bus at a zebra crossing. His death occurred one day after he completed his last trilogy, Demon Stalkers.

Reviews

[Riq Hoelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note: This review is for the de-versified illustrated edition that recounts the story in very readable modern language.

This is quite a pleasant fantasy read overall. Although loaded with allegory and symbolism, and you always know that good will utterly triumph in the end, in these times there's a certain comfort in that. Perhaps this type of storytelling will make a comeback.

In addition, his Elizabethan-era fantasy seems to have had a significant influence on modern works. My theory is that since it is relatively little known - occupying a niche mostly visited only by specialists - people have felt free to grab its ideas and have gotten away with it.

J.R.R. Tolkien. Although both his stories and those of this book contain dragons, they aren't really very similar. Instead, he took the main idea itself, that of creating a mythology for England and the English (and succeeded much better than this work ever did). He might also have gotten the idea of the magical palantir from book 3's crystal globes, fashioned by Merlin that could reveal past and future.

The movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Not only did it grab the idea of separate tales for each knight, its famous Black Knight is very similar to the dragon, which repeatedly has significant body parts removed and blood gushing forth, yet somehow still continues to fight. The Bower of Bliss in the second book is reminiscent of the Castle Anthrax storyline as well. So not only is there a similarity of ideas, they are even presented in the same order. There's also the meta quality. The Pythons suddenly put the story into the present day much as the author included in the final book, himself.

The role playing game Dungeons & Dragons seems to have borrowed the idea of strict classification of good and evil characters, as well as lawful and chaotic, the good wild man being an example of chaotic good. It is probably also the source of the cleric/fighter, as exemplified by the indomitable Talus character, armed with a flail.

The board game Talisman seems to have borrowed the pools of health and strength. They are reflected in cards in the game, as are some of the characters.

There is a line of text incorrectly repeated on page 122.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first attempted to read The Faerie Queen when I was an English literature student - and hated it. I remember experiencing its overwritten, meandering farrago vividly precisely because I hated it so much. Even though I failed to penetrate very far into the thicket of the poem before giving up, I always felt a bit miffed that I didn't get a chance to explore the myth-making and magic of Spenser's epic. Discovering the prose adaptation by Douglas Hill in my grandmother's attic was, therefore, a gem of serendipity. It's a beautifully presented edition filled with Renaissance artwork and manuscript illuminations.

The Renaissance artwork in particular matches up rather neatly with a work that reads like a guide to English Renaissance aesthetics and ideas. Chivalric knights act as allegorical representations of holiness, justice, temperance, etc., battling evil magicians, corrupting sorceresses and foul creatures who symbolise vanity, lust and all the other deadly sins, as well as those more practical concerns like the Blatant Beast (scandalous slander) and Catholicism. Anglican dogma is crafted over myths from the Greeks and Romans, and there are some great creations - Despair is particularly ghoulish - but on the whole it seems much more derivative than the originality that imbues John Bunyan's later Pilgrim's Progress. After the sixteenth or seventeenth knightly battle (most very similarly choreographed) I was beginning to feel a bit weary of the formula.

I did read in tandem with the prose adaptation a bit of the original poem online to get a feel for the versification, but even 10 years after my first attempt, I'm still not interested enough to attempt a full assault on the forest of circumlocution - which, incidentally, sounds like a great location for Spenser's allegorical work.

[Frank M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got my copy of this book when I was in my 20s. I have read it 3 or 4 times over the last 35 years.
I love the story and how the pictures are used to make points about the story or its characters.