This student edition is based on the first published text and offers an authoritative introduction, discussing the View's reception, relating it to Spenser's corpus as a whole, and summarising recent scholarship.

This groundbreaking book shatters historical stereotypes, demonstrating that, in the century before 1870, Ireland was not an anglicized kingdom and was capable of articulating modernity in the Irish language. It gives a dynamic account of the complexity of Ireland in the nineteenth century, developments in church and state, and the adaptive bilingualism found across all regions, social levels, and religious persuasions.