Book is c + 302 pp. Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader precedes its 26 Old English prose and verse texts or extracts with a substantial Grammatical Introduction (ix-c); they are followed by notes (187-204), glossary (205-300), and addenda and corrigenda (301-2). Beowulf is represented by "Beowulf and Grendel's Mother" (Beowulf, lines 1251-1650), which Sweet explains in its brief headnote is "one of the most vivid and picturesque passages in the whole poem" (119).

(The pre-1946 edition numbering in this paragraph is given according to the detailed listing on the copyright page of the 10th ed., 1946. Earlier printings/editions offer contradictory information; see Notes on Prior Documentation, below.) The Anglo-Saxon Reader was updated and revised through its 8th ed. (1894) by Sweet, then by C. T. Onions for the 9th ed. (1922) through 14th ed. (1959), and by Dorothy Whitelock for its 15th ed. (1967). In the book's many editions, the selection of lines from Beowulf did not change, although the visual presentation did: Sweet's edition of 1894 would add typographical mid-line spacing, replace acute accents with macrons to indicate vowel length as was becoming standard, and use italics to indicate metrical alliteration.

After Sweet's short summary of the early part of the poem, the Beowulf excerpt begins:

Sigon ðá tó slǽpe. Sum sáre angeald
ǽfenręste, swá him full oft gelamp,
siððan goldsęle Gręndel warode,
unriht æfnde, óð ðæt ęnde becwǫm,
swilt æfter synnum. Ðæt gesíne wearð,
wídcúð werum, ðætte wrecend ðá git
lifde æfter láðum, lange þrage,
æfter gúðceare: Gręndles módor,
ides aglǽcwíf irmðe gemunde,
se ðe wæteręgesan wunian scolde,
cealde streámas, siððan Cain wearð
tó ęcgbanan ángan bréðer,
fæderenmǽge; hé ðá fág gewát,
morðre gemearcod manndreám fleón,
wésten warode. (119-20)

And it ends:

Ðá cǫm inn gán ealdor þegna,
dǽdcéne mǫnn dóme gewurðad,
hæle hildedeór, Hróðgár grétan.
Ðá wæs be feaxe ǫn flętt boren
Gręndles heáfod, ðǽr guman druncon,
ęgeslic for eorlum and ðǽre idese mid;
wliteseón wrætlic weras ǫnsáwon. (132)

• Mark Atherton, “Priming the Poets: The Making of Henry Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader,” in Anglo-Saxon Culture and the Modern Imagination, ed. David Clark and Nicholas Perkins (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2010), 31–49.

The 1894 edition was counted as the 7th at the time, but was called the 8th in the detailed listing on the copyright page of the 10th edition (1946). Whether numbered as the 7th or 8th edition, the 1894 version is important in making major changes to the format of the Beowulf text. Fry's and GR's listing of editions coincides with the information given in the 1946 10th edition.

BAM, from digital facsimile of a copy at Harvard University, via Hathitrust.org. Additional information from many other editions examined directly or in digital facsimile.