Lawrence Warner

Lawrence Warner is Professor of Medieval English Literature at King's College London. His most recent book, Chaucer's Scribes: London Textual Production, 1384-1432 (Cambridge UP, 2018), speaks to central questions in medieval English literary history, such as: do we know the identity of Chaucer's personal scribe? Who was copying and supervising the production of Chaucer's works in London in the decades surrounding 1400? Did this occur in the London Guildhall? (Spoiler: no, we don't know, and no, notwithstanding many influential recent claims to the contrary.)

Lawrence's 2014 book The Myth of Piers Plowman: Constructing a Medieval Literary Archive (Cambridge UP), received the 2016 Beatrice White Prize from the English Association for the outstanding scholarly work in the field of English literature before 1590. And his first book, The Lost History of Piers Plowman: The Earliest Transmission of Langland's Work (U of Pennsylvania P, 2011), received Honorable Mention for the Richard J. Finneran Award, Society for Textual Scholarship, for best edition or book about textual theory/practice published over the previous two years.