London Literature, 1300–1380. By Ralph Hanna. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, 57. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. xxiv + 359. $95.

London Literature, 1300–1380 is a book about manuscripts and scribes, about local milieux of book production, about the mix of languages read and spoken in England, and about the variety of texts in circulation in all of Latin, French, and English. It offers physical detail about a number of the books in which the "London literature" identified by Hanna circulated, and introduces and summarizes a number of little-known but extraordinarily interesting works. Running throughout is an argument about the value of scrutinizing literary production through localizable manuscript records, and a fairly explicit set of warnings about the speciousness of literary-historical master narratives. Hanna is concerned with the specifics of what he describes as London's "polyvocal" literary environment, and to this end he looks at books of all kinds, whether for lawyers, clerks, magnates, or humbler laymen and laywomen. From this specificity he is also able to construct a set of literary-critical arguments about the nature and reception of works in which he has had long-established interests—Middle English romances and Piers Plowman, in particular. A synthesis of this kind promises the best sort of cultural history, and parts of Hanna's work in this book are both innovative and rewarding.

Julia Boffey
Queen Mary University of London