Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene: A Prose Rendering

Typesetting joy!
5 months ago – Wed, Jul 03, 2024 at 02:45:31 PM

Probably the single hardest part of this project has been continuting to push through fatigue while pursing quality until every possible aspect of the project sings. And this challenge has followed us all the way to the finish line.
 
We had tried several approaches to typesetting, and our dear, dear layout team was attempting to follow every single request I had made. But I could tell something still wasn't right. 

I thought I knew typesetting. I kept making requests to tweak this or tweak that. But I couldn't solve this problem.

In the end, I guess I was the problem.

Because finally, we handed the project over to a dear friend of mine, Ned Bustard. A fellow publisher told me that Ned was actually the best typesetter he knows, and that publisher is top notch. Ned is also a dear friend, so my trust for his artistic sense is very high.

Still, I didn't think we'd be able to get him--especially on such short notice. BUT after I flooded his inbox with my grief and begged him to take a look at what I'd made of things, he took pity on me and said yes. 

About an hour ago, he submitted a draft for the entire first volume.

Every single page is gorgeous.

And you know what's funny? It's gorgeous because he didn't limit himself to what I thought I wanted. He was brave enough to make art out of art.  

Here's one example.

See how the birds work at the top? Little things like this--all through the book. 

He's also worked relentlessly and efficiently, giving me hope that printing is far closer than I had imagined! 

This whole project has been such a powerful lesson in community. I've needed so many people at the very moment they have arrived on scene. These needs have been met by the relentless support of my publisher, by your wildly supportive rally behind the endeavor, by Renaissance experts, by our illustrator, by a writing coach, by our editor, and now by our typesetter. And our printer is also a godsend! He's incredible.

Every person on that list has offered something I couldn't provide on my own.  It's humbling, but in a sweet, celebratory way. 

When I was younger, I wanted to learn how to do everything with excellence so that I'd never have to depend upon anyone when chasing an artistic project. But as I grow older, I am realizing that knowing people who are far more skilled than I am is the greater gift. 

I'm so grateful for brilliant friends. I'm so grateful to be part of this team. It's wonderful to wake up and realize you're in the company of kindly wizards and noble giants.

 

Change of Address Questions
5 months ago – Wed, Jun 26, 2024 at 07:37:30 AM

Hello all,

We've received several questions about how to change your address, so I thought I'd send a quick update to explain how this will work.

When all the typesetting and edits are complete and we prepare to ship, we will send out a final survey making sure that we have the correct address for you. We're pushing that as close as we can to our actual shipping date so that we catch as many last minute moves as possible. :)

As for production updates, Volume Two is being typeset. (Yay!) We are still working through a final check for tiny skewed details on Volume One typesetting. I'm aggravated by randomness like lost italics and size differences in footnote callouts. These errors were not present in the doc files we submitted, which is so frustrating. But, we're at the point of admitting that we have to search for them manually. 

We heard back from our printer yesterday with updated estimates, so that is also falling in place.  

Finally, I also heard back from my favorite living Spenserian critic. I was super nervous about sending the file for Volume One to him, but he had positive things to say about his initial glance through the text. (I won't tell you who it is because I didn't ask permission to make his comments public, but I did give a little hoot of joy when I read his response.)

Anyway, closer, closer. Look for that survey, if you will. I'll post an update here to let you know when we send it, so maybe make sure you open all of your emails from Kickstarter related to our project for the next few months--just to make sure you don't miss it.

Thanks so much for all your support!

Rebecca
 

Quick Update
5 months ago – Tue, Jun 18, 2024 at 06:55:50 PM

Just a quick note to let you know where we are in our process. 

Our text files for all three volumes have been with the typesetter since our last update. Apparently, our formatting has proven a bit complicated, as we are trying to combine elements from academic writing with the beauty of a storybook. I'm also asking for little artistic details that require extra time on the typesetter's part. 

We recently received a PDF draft of the first book, which I printed at Office Depot and then spiral bound to check it over once more. Our style looks incredible, but several details were lost during import. So, now we are trying to figure out why this happened. We checked our drafts so carefully, we don't want new errors inserted at this stage of the game.

With every other stage in this process, getting the kinks worked out in the first volume has led to much quicker progress in the second and third volumes. So, I'm hoping that our current sleuthing will make the remainder of typesetting much easier. I'm so eager to finally hold these books! I know you are, too. 

Anyway, here's a sneak peak with a few pages from Volume One.  

Thanks again for walking through this with us!

Quick Update
7 months ago – Tue, May 14, 2024 at 06:31:49 PM

One of you requested an update, so I'm sending a quick note. :)

Our books are still at the typesetter.  We've requested a few special layout techniques to enhance the beauty of the pages, so this stage might take a bit longer than normal. I'll update you as soon as I know more. :) 

Thanks again for cheering us on!
Rebeccca
 

Covers, Illustrations, and Spines
8 months ago – Thu, Apr 11, 2024 at 04:18:03 PM

It took two people and twenty-eight hours, but we replaced every footnote and re-formatted every instance of italics in Volume One. Hurrah! Today I emailed all three volumes to my editor for a final scan, and after that, we are off to final-final-final typesetting.

We got our ISBNs several months ago, so now I'm learning to register titles at the Library of Congress. Other than gleaning dates and cities for research papers, I've never paid much attention to copyright pages, but a lot goes into gathering all those bits and bobs of information that nobody ever reads! 

As I double-checked placement for every illustration, I had the opportunity to look through all of Justin's artwork again. I'll attach a teaser thumbnail screenshot so you can get excited. This is just for Book One, so you are seeing half of the art in Volume One--and there's also a color shot you can't see here. Basically, multiply this genius times six. Do you see why I'm so excited about what's about to happen next?

C.S. Lewis once said: "Beyond all doubt, it is best to have made one's first acquaintance with Spenser in a very large -- and preferably illustrated -- edition of The Faerie Queen, on a wet day, between the ages of twelve and sixteen." Twelve might actually be a bit too young for The Faerie Queene--especially in a prose version that's easier for young minds to understand. However, Lewis is my biggest hero, so his words have often driven me onward in this project, thinking about readers curled up on a rainy day with these books. 

Lewis was Irish, but he spent much of his life in England. This is important because Spenser wrote The Faerie Queene while working as an English government official in Ireland. He supported some ghastly policies and wrote a brief but terrible political statement that excused abuse of the Irish people. 

Watching Lewis interact with stories that inspired him so deeply, while remaining honest about Spenser's infractions, has provided wisdom and steadiness for me during a season in which political discourse in my own country often feels more rabid than reasonable. In fact, most of the time that I've been working through Spenser, I've worn an Irish coin given to me by a dear friend, dated 1946--three years before Lewis finished the first book of the Narnia series. 

It's been interesting thinking about this coin circulating in Ireland while Lewis scribbled away at his own tales in England, loving what was good about Spenser, hating what was bad about Spenser, gleaning inspiration from The Faerie Queene while keeping a nuanced view of the poet himself. I have a lot to learn from all that.

Last week I had my first opportunity to speak about The Faerie Queene post completion. I was supposed to talk for thirty-five minutes, which might have daunted me at one point in my life. Instead, I had to cut my talk in half, then cut it in half again. It's hard to share thoughts on something so vast in just a few minutes! However, it was also wonderful to talk to real humans who gave up on reading the original poem, and who are now excited about exploring it for the first time.

Finally, now that the text is out of my hands, I spent some time working on spine and cover design today. These images look a bit blurry and dull here because Kickstarter reduces image resolution, but the colors are rich and deep in their true state. My publisher noted that this gives a sense of looking through a portal into Faerie Land, and I love that thought.

Next week we will meet with our printer and start finalizing the particulars of paper color, weight, and texture. I'm ridiculously excited about that part of the process. No matter how long I'm in publishing, I'll never get over the fact that I get to be a part of making actual books that we can see, smell, flip through, and hold in our hands. It's like being a magician--except it's better.

That's all for now. We are so close!

Rebecca