Book is x + 278 pp.; b/w illus. An anthology-style collection that includes Crossley-Holland's translations of Beowulf (originally published 1968) and many other poems, as well as prose texts translated by various scholars, organized by genre or type. Beowulf, the 18th text of 50, is the sole text in the section Epic. The book begins with Crossley-Holland's brief introduction (viii-x), and each section also has its own introduction. The collection concludes with a select bibliography (276-77). Several images of artifacts, manuscripts, or artworks are distributed throughout the book.

The Beowulf text begins:

Listen!

              The fame of Danish kings
in days gone by, the daring feats
worked by those heroes are well known to us.

Scyld Scefing often deprived his enemies,
many tribes of men, of their mead-benches.
He terrified his foes; yet he, as a boy,
had been found a waif; fate made amends for that.
He prospered under heaven, won praise and honour,
until the men of every neighbouring tribe,
across the whale's way, were obliged to obey him
and pay him tribute. He was a noble king! (71)

And ends:

Then twelve brave warriors, sons of heroes,
rode round the barrow, sorrowing;
they mourned their king, chanted
an elegy, spoke about that great man:
they axalted his heroic life, lauded
his daring deeds; it is fitting for a man,
when his lord and friend must leave this life,
to mouth words in his praise
and to cherish his memory.
Thus the Geats, his hearth-companions,
grieved over the death of their lord;
they said that of all kings on earth
he was the kindest, the most gentle,
the most just to his people, the most eager for fame. (142)

Not in MO2.

BAM (from 1st U.S. edition: Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble Books, 1983).