A Companion to Middle English Prose. Edited by A. S. G. Edwards. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2004. Pp. x + 334. $120.

This is a much-needed resource, emerging out of two decades of prolific research and discovery projected in large part by the contributors to its parent text, Middle English Prose: A Critical Guide to Major Authors and Genres (1984), also edited by A. S. G. Edwards. Books like this do best when they open up a large field not just to newcomers but also to seasoned scholars looking for new ways in. In this dual role Edwards's new vade mecum excels. there are eighteen chapters, a subject index, and an index of manuscripts. Each of the chapters, whatever else they may do, includes introductory information and is appended by a bibliography prepared by the chapter's author. If there is one way in which this book stumbles in its ostensible mission, it is in the collective and cross-referential utility of these bibliographies, which do not adhere to a common format of organization or citation, and which vary dramatically in depth of coverage: this becomes critical in the case of primary sources cited in the body of some essays, and crucial in the case of unpublished texts and their manuscripts. this aside, there is considerable and welcome variance of critical and methodological emphasis across the chapters, with much potential for further insight if one chooses to read the chapters for their interplay.

Stephen H. A. Shepherd
Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles