New research into medieval English literature, with a particular focus on manuscripts and writing. This acclaimed study of English medieval manuscripts and early printed books - many items from Professor Takamiya's own collection - quickly sold out in hardcover. The subjects range from Saint Jerome to Tolkien, with particular concentrations on Chaucer, Gower, Malory and religious and historical writings of the late middle ages. There are essays examining the work of early printers such as Caxton and de Worde, and of bibliophiles and antiquarians in modern times. Befitting a tribute to a bibliophile, this volume has been handsomely designed by Lida Kindersley of the Cardozo Kindersley Workshop in Cambridge, and is extensively illustrated. The volume as a whole constitutes a substantial body of research on medieval English literature, and early books and manuscripts. Contributors: Richard Barber, Nicolas Barker, Richard Beadle, N.F. Blake, Julia Boffey, Piero Boitani, Derek Brewer, Helen Cooper, A.I. Doyle, Martha W. Driver, A.S.G. Edwards, P.J.C. Field, Christopher de Hamel, Ralph Hanna, Lotte Hellinga, Kristian Jensen, Edward Donald Kennedy, Richard A. Linenthal, Jill Mann, Takami Matsuda, David McKitterick, Rosamond McKitterick, Linne R. Mooney, Ruth Morse, Daniel W. Mosser, Tsuyoshi Mukai, Paul Needham, M.B. Parkes, Derek Pearsall, Oliver Pickering, P.R. Robinson, Michael G. Sargent, John Scahill, Kathleen L. Scott, Jeremy J. Smith, Isamu Takahashi, John J. Thompson, Linda Ehrsam Voigts, Yoko Wada, Bonnie Wheeler, Patrick Zutshi.

This volume completes the first uniform edition of the Early Middle English Ancrene Wisse Group. It contains Sawles Warde from the Katherine Group, and the Wooing Group of lyrical meditations. These works, originally written for devout women, are of unusual literary and linguistic interest. The readings of all the manuscripts are printed in parallel for easy comparison, presenting the various versions of the Wooing Group in a more cohesive form than in existing editions. Paleographical and textual notes are provided, along with frequency wordlists and a selection of notes from an unpublished edition by E. J. Dobson.

The Ancrene Wisse is perhaps the most notable monument of Middle English prose, its influence evident from the time of its composition in the early thirteenth century until at least the Reformation. As the only Early Middle English work of considerable length to survive in more than two copies, it is a unique resource for the study of textual variation according to dialect, date, milieu and stylistic preferences. This edition presents four versions-those of the early Corpus, Cleopatra and Nero manuscripts, and the late and substantially modernised version of the Vernon manuscript. To facilitate comparison, they are printed in parallel form, line by line, and supplied with extensive notes. This volume, containing the latter portion of the text and wordlists, complements Vol. 7 in this series.