A View of the State of Ireland, Written Dialogue-Wise, Between Eudoxus and Irenaeus by Edmund Spencer, Esq. In the Year 1596. A History of Ireland, Written in the Year 1571. By Edmund Campion. Dublin: Hibernia Press, 1809. Pp 266; 204. Two work bound together in half calf, cloth boards. Spine with raised bands, compartments decorated in blind. Pale water marks to corners of a number of pages to first part, otherwise a very good copy.

Edmund Spenser is best known as an English poet (author of the Faerie Queen), but was also connected to Elizabeth’s conquest of Ireland. He first went to Ireland in 1580, as part an English expedition of internal colonization, which intended to eliminate local sources of power and impose English crown authority over the kingdom. This work was written at the end of his career, as Spenser attempted to sum up the lingering problems within the mission of internal colonization. The text is written in the form of a dialogue between two Englishmen, Eudox and Irenius; the former has never been to Ireland, while the latter has recently returned from the island while it was in the midst of the Tudor conquest.

Edmund Campion, Jesuit, writer, history was used as a source by Raphael Holinshed for his ‘The historie of Irelande’ (1577), and was subsequently published by Sir James Ware as part of a three-volume set entitled ‘The history of Ireland’ in 1633.