Manuscripts and Texts: Editorial Problems in Later Middle English Literature

The essays collected here are an edited selection of the papers given at the 3rd York Conference on 15th-century Manuscript Studies, held at the University of York in July 1985.
The conference concentrated on problems of textual criticism and editorial practice in relation to late medieval English texts, and the present essays constitute an important landmark in the development of the study of the subject, both general and specific. Textual questions lie at the root of all study of literature: if they are not addressed, then what is read can only be imperfectly understood, whatever critical approach the reader thinks he is making. Such questions are a matter of the liveliestdebate at the present time, and the texts of the principal authors of the period, including Chaucer, Langland and Gower, are being vigorously re-evaluated. Other major forms of literary production, such as drama and the romances,present special problems, and it is possible to credit a wide range of views concerning the status of `the text' in such cases.