Book is xxiii + 626 + 38 (unnumbered) pp.; b/w illus. A collection of Old and Middle English literature, with a section of 56 images (maps, artifacts, manuscript pages) in an unpaginated section between pp. 438 and 439. This is a new, significantly revised edition of Medieval English Literature, originally edited by Trapp alone in 1973. For this edition, several more Old English poems are added to those that were included in the original version, and Charles W. Kennedy's translation of Beowulf is replaced by that of Edwin Morgan. The poem is preceded by a lengthy introduction and genealogical tables (2-10).

The translation begins:

INTRODUCTORY: HISTORY AND
PRAISE OF THE DANES, AND ACCOUNT OF
GRENDEL'S ATTACKS ON HEOROT
How that glory remains in remembrance,
Of the Danes and their kings in days gone,
The acts and valour of princes of their blood!

Scyld Scefing: how often he thrust from their feast-halls
The troops of his enemies, tribe after tribe,
Terrifying their warriors: he who had been found
Long since as a waif and awaited his desert
While he grew up and throve in honour among men
Till all the nations neighbouring about him
Sent as his subjects over the whale-fields
Their gifts of tribute: king worth the name! (10)

And ends:

The men of the Geats, the sharers of his hearth
Mourned thus aloud for the fall of their lord;
They said he had proved of all kings of the world
The kindest of men and the most humane,
Most gentle to his folk, most vigilant of fame. (78)

BAM.