1954 The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman, in Three Parallel Texts, Together with Richard the Redeless Volume I. - Text Volume II. - Introduction, Notes, and Glossary

Description

Original Binding, With Dustwrapper

A smart and uncommon two volume set, in original blue cloth binding.

Volume I contains the Middle English text, transliterated, while Volume II holds the preface, notes and glossary, in its original, and unclipped, dust wrapper.

A pillar of Middle English literature, this allegoric poem is set in many stages of a dream, through which Langland and his protagonist, Will, contemplate humanity's ability to strive to 'do well, do better, do best', through repentance and grace.

'Piers the Plowman' preceded, and is considered to have influenced Chaucer's 14th Century work, 'The Canterbury Tales', and offers a rare insight into the religious perspective of the everyman of the Medieval Period.

Edited by Walter Skeat, whose work helped to create a more coherent perspective of a 3-text canon out of the variants of this work - the 'A', 'B', and 'C' texts.

Copies of an edition published with additional bibliography in 1954 - the first edition of which was published in 1886.