Book is 57 (paginated TX1-TX57) + i (unnumbered) + 1321 + i (unnumbered) + 126 (paginated R1-R126) pp.; color illus. The anthology is a textbook for grade 12 English classes and is explicitly coordinated with standardized testing by the state of Texas.

The Beowulf section is pp. 22-57. A series of excerpts from Raffel's translation (pp. 24-52, totaling 1136 lines) is preceded by a short "Before You Read" series of introductory remarks and reading tips (22-23) and is followed by "After You Read," "Respond through Writing," and "Vocabulary Workshop" (53-57), all keyed to Beowulf. Many illustrations, mainly of artifacts, are in the margins. One illustration is from a prior depiction of Beowulf: a painting by Evelyn Paul (Beowulf being confronted by the Danish coast guard, 27), which had been reproduced in black and white in H. A. Guerber's Beowulf retelling in her Myths and Legends of the Middle Ages (1909) and some derivatives of that book, but given here in color. The Raffel translation is placed in juxtaposition, for comparative study, with an episode from Gilgamesh (60-61), one from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (62-65), and a few pages from Gareth Hinds' graphic novel The Collected Beowulf (2000), showing Beowulf's arrival in Daneland (66-71).

The Raffel text given begins:

GRENDEL ATTACKS THE DANES

A powerful monster, living down
In the darkness, growled in pain, impatient
As day after day the music rang
Loud in that hall, the harp's rejoicing
Call and the poet's clear songs, sung
Of the ancient beginnings of us all, recalling
The Almighty making the earth, shaping
These beautiful plains marked off by oceans,
Then proudly setting the sun and moon
To glow across the land and light it;
The corners of the earth were made lovely with trees
And leaves, made quick with life, with each
Of the nations who now move on its face. (24)

And ends:

And then twelve of the bravest Geats
Rode their horses around the tower,
Telling their sorrow, telling stories
Of their dead king and his greatness, his glory,
Praising him for heroic deeds, for a life
As noble as his name. So should all men
Raise up words for their lords, warm
With love, when their shield and protector leaves
His body behind, sends his soul
On high. And so Beowulf's followers
Rode, mourning their belovèd leader,
Crying that no better king had ever
Lived, no prince so mild, no man
So open to his people, so deserving of praise. (51-52)

BAM.