'This deeply informed and lavishly illustrated book is a comprehensive introduction to the modern study of Middle English manuscripts. It is intended for students and scholars who are familiar
with some of the major Middle English literary works, such asThe Canterbury Tales, Gawain and the Green Knight, Piers Plowman, and the romances, mystical works or cycle plays, but who may not
know much about the surviving manuscripts. The book approaches these texts in a way that takes into account the whole manuscript or codex--its textual and visual contents, physical state,
readership, and cultural history. Opening Up Middle English Manuscripts also explores the function of illustrations in fashioning audience response to particular authors and their texts overthe
course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.'--Publisher's website.
