Long overdue, but here, at last, is the seventh installment in our series on Edmund Spenser’s Strike influence. As we 
suspected from the first preview peeks at the Table of Contents for Troubled Blood, The Faerie Queene’s influence for this installment of the Denmark Street mysteries goes far beyond catchy little opening quotations to get the reader’s attention at the beginnings of sections and chapters. Rowling-Galbraith has skillfully woven in connections with Edmund Spenser’s grand epic poem, and delightfully mirrors the structure of the poem with the structure of the novel. As we’ve now reached the end, that brings us to Part Seven of Troubled Blood and the (sadly) incomplete Book VII of The Faerie Queene, so join me after the jump for seven thoughts about the great connections between these short ending pieces of really long texts!
The posts in this series in sequence can be found at these embedded links:
Day One, Part One: The Spenserian Epigraphs of the Pre-Released Troubled Blood Chapters- Day Two, Part Two: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Eight to Fourteen
- Day Three, Part Three: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Fifteen to Thirty
- Day Four, Part Four: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Thirty One to Forty Eight
- Day Five, Part Five: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Forty Nine to Fifty Nine
- Part Six: The Spenserian Epigraphs of Troubled Blood Chapters Sixty to Seventy One
literary scenery along the way as we raced to our thrilling conclusion and the final unmasking of guilty parties. I’ll require a few more reads myself to catch the majority of our clever author’s well-woven threads taken from Edmund Spenser’s loom, and I doubt anyone could catch them all, but I hope I’ll give you plenty to think about as we admire the artistry of the novel as well as its source. This installment will take us right up to the end of Part Six, so if you haven’t gotten there yet, no peeking! All the spoilers are after the jump, so come along with me to continue our exploration into how The Faerie Queene and Troubled Blood are as intertwined as the trees in one of Spenser’s forests.
As we head around the bend toward the back of the novel and the back of the year, the closing of the mystery and of the timespan that is clearly our stage, it’s time to take a peek at some of the best Faerie Queene cues in Part Five. If you haven’t caught up to our thoughts on Troubled Blood so far, there is time, so check out our Hogwarts Professor takes on a wide variety of angles for this novel so far. I’m having a grand time keeping the Spenser score running, looking at ways in which our intrepid detectives are mirroring elements of The Faerie Queene, and I hope you’re having as much fun as we are! Follow me after the jump for five Faerie Queene take-aways from Part Five! Remember, spoilers galore, so stop here if you need to get past chapter 59! 
writes book series that hold up under multiple reads, with new treasures revealed each time.
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