Greenfield, Stanley B., and Daniel G. Calder. A New Critical History of Old English Literature. With a Survey of the Anglo-Latin Background by Michael Lapidge. New York: New York UP, 1986. 370 pp. PR173.G73 829′.09.

A critical history of Anglo-Saxon poetry and prose that incorporates important scholarship and criticism in its readings of texts. Chapters are devoted to the Anglo-Latin background; Alfredian translations and related prose; Ælfric, Wulfstan, and other late prose; the nature and quality of Old English poetry; secular heroic poetry; the Christian saint as hero; Christ as poetic hero; Old Testament narrative poetry; miscellaneous religious and secular poetry; lore and wisdom verse; and elegiac poetry. The extensive list of works cited also serves as the best selective bibliography of scholarship on Old English literature through the early 1980s. Indexed by literary authors and anonymous works (but unfortunately not by scholars). Like its predecessor—Greenfield, A Critical History of Old English Literature (New York: New York UP, 1965; 237 pp.)—this is an authoritative history that has had a profound impact on Old English scholarship. Review: E. G. Stanley, Comparative Literature 40.3 (1988): 286–89.

R. D. Fulk and Christopher M. Cain, A History of Old English Literature, Blackwell Histories of Literature (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003; 346 pp.) is an important complement because it emphasizes scholarship since the mid-1980s and offers a fuller treatment of prose.

Hill, David. An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1981. 180 pp. G1812.21.S2.H5 912′.42. (A second edition was announced for 2002 but was never published.)

A series of maps, tables, diagrams, chronologies, and graphs that organize information on topography, demography, physical geography, historical events and periods, political administration, the economy, and the church. Indexed by place. An essential complement to narrative histories. Reviews: Rebecca V. Colman, Canadian Journal of History 17.3 (1982): 515–16; Simon Keynes, Antiquity 57.219 (1983): 66–67.

““The Year’s Work in Old English Studies, [1967– ]”.” Old English Newsletter 2 (1968)– . PE101.O44 829′.09.

An evaluative survey of research based on the “Old English Bibliography” (M1665). The commentary by various scholars is currently arranged in nine classified divisions: general; memorials, tributes, and history of the discipline; language; literature; Anglo-Latin and ecclesiastical works; manuscripts, illumination, and charters; history and culture; onomastics; and archaeology and numismatics. Most sections conclude with a list of works not seen, which may be discussed in a following survey. Like the “Old English Bibliography” and the annual bibliography in Anglo-Saxon England (M1660), “The Year’s Work in Old English Studies” is an essential source for current scholarship and one that is more thorough and critical than the chapter on Old English literature in Year’s Work in English Studies (G330); unfortunately, coverage is now far in arrears. For a history and evaluation of this annual survey, see Twenty Years of the “Year’s Work in Old English Studies,” ed. Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe, Old English Newsletter 15, subsidia (1989): 57 pp.

““Bibliography for [1971– ]”.” Anglo-Saxon England 1 (1972)– . DA152.2.A75 942.01′05.

An international classified bibliography of books, articles, and significant reviews on all aspects of Anglo-Saxon studies. Entries are currently classified in 11 divisions: general; Old English language; Old English literature; Anglo-Latin, liturgy, and other ecclesiastical texts; paleography, diplomatics, and illumination; history; numismatics; onomastics; archaeology; inscriptions and runology; reviews. This bibliography, “Old English Bibliography” (M1665), and “The Year’s Work in Old English Studies” (M1655) are essential sources for identifying current scholarship.

““Old English Bibliography, [1969– ]”.” Old English Newsletter 3 (1970)– . PE101.O44 829′.09.

OEN Bibliography Database. Old English Newsletter. OEN, n.d. 21 Nov. 2012. <http://www.oenewsletter.org/OENDB/index.php>. Updated regularly.

An international bibliography of scholarship on England before 1066 in ten divisions: general; memorials, tributes, and history of the profession; language; literature; Anglo-Latin and ecclesiastical works; manuscripts, illumination, and charters; history and culture; names; archaeology and related subjects; and reviews. Many of the works are subsequently evaluated in “The Year’s Work in Old English Studies” (M1655). The bibliographies since the one for 1972 can be searched online in OEN Bibliography Database, which allows users to browse records by classified categories (chronological periods; people; places; objects; events; texts; language; religion and learning; government and economic life; history and culture; archaeology; and Anglo-Saxon studies) or to search by keyword, personal name, title, journal title, date, type of publication, and language. Each of these methods allows users to restrict searches by date and to sort results in ascending order by date, author, or title; users should note that reviews appear at the end of a list of results. Records can be marked for e-mailing or printing. Anglo-Saxon scholars are fortunate to have nearly all the installments of “Old English Bibliography” searchable through a well-designed interface. Like the annual bibliography in Anglo-Saxon England (M1660), this work is an essential source for current scholarship that offers fuller coverage than the serial bibliographies and indexes in section G. Unfortunately, coverage lags about six years.

Greenfield, Stanley B., and Fred C. Robinson. A Bibliography of Publications on Old English Literature to the End of 1972. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1980. 437 pp. Z2012.G83 [PR173] 016.829.

The closest we are likely to come to an exhaustive bibliography of books, editions, articles, notes, and reviews published from the fifteenth century through 1972 (with a few later publications) on Old English literature. Since the focus is literature in Old English, Greenfield and Robinson exclude discussions of Anglo-Latin literature as well as linguistic, historical, and archaeological studies that do not bear directly on an Old English literary text; they also exclude unpublished dissertations as well as general anthologies and surveys of English literature. Entries are listed chronologically in three variously classified divisions: general works, poetry, and prose. Many entries are accompanied by a brief annotation that clarifies the topic or place of a study in a scholarly controversy; entries for books list reviews. The liberal cross-references exclude works within the same section and standard texts in collections. Two indexes: authors and reviewers; subjects. A magisterial achievement whose accuracy and comprehensiveness fully deserve the praise accorded it by reviewers. Reviews: Carl T. Berkhout, Speculum 57.4 (1982): 897–99; Donald K. Fry, Analytical and Enumerative Bibliography 6.3 (1982): 183–86; Fry, English Language Notes 20.1 (1982): 11–20.

A discursive examination of “the changing aims and achievements of [Anglo-Saxon] scholars” occasioned by the Greenfield and Robinson Bibliography, E. G. Stanley’s “The Scholarly Recovery of the Significance of Anglo-Saxon Records in Prose and Verse: A New Bibliography,” Anglo-Saxon England 9 (1981): 223–62, notes important sources for research in areas outside Greenfield and Robinson’s scope (as does New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature [M1675]). For supplementary coverage of prose (principally by King Alfred and his circle), see Carl T. Berkhout, “Research on Early Old English Literary Prose, 1973–1982,” Studies in Earlier Old English Prose, ed. Paul E. Szarmach (Albany: State U of New York P, 1986) 401–09, and Karen J. Quinn and Kenneth P. Quinn, A Manual of Old English Prose (New York: Garland, 1990; 439 pp.; Garland Reference Lib. of the Humanities 453), with coverage through 1982. For studies published after 1972, see the annual bibliographies in Anglo-Saxon England (M1660) and Old English Newsletter (M1655 and M1665). North American dissertations through 1986 are conveniently found in Phillip Pulsiano, An Annotated Bibliography of North American Doctoral Dissertations on Old English Language and Literature (East Lansing: Colleagues, 1988; 317 pp.; Medieval Texts and Studies 3).

For a description of a database that would incorporate and continue Greenfield and Robinson, see Berkhout, “The Bibliography of Old English: Back to the Future,” Old English Scholarship and Bibliography: Essays in Honor of Carl T. Berkhout, ed. Jonathan Wilcox, Old English Newsletter subsidia 32 ([Kalamazoo:] Medieval Inst., Western Michigan U, 2004) 107–14.

Areas not covered in existing or planned bibliographies constitute the principal subjects of Annotated Bibliographies of Old and Middle English Literature (Woodbridge: Brewer, 1992– ):

The volumes typically include an evaluative overview of trends in scholarship along with extensively annotated entries (arranged by date of publication).

The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (NCBEL). Vol. 1: 600–1660. Ed. George Watson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1974. 2,476 cols. Z2011.N45 [PR83] 016.82.

(For a full discussion of NCBEL, see entry M1385.) The part devoted to the Anglo-Saxon period (to 1100) has two major divisions: Old English Literature and Writings in Latin. The first includes sections for general works (subdivided by bibliographies, histories, anthologies, general studies, and ancillary studies), poetry (dictionaries, collections, manuscript studies, general criticism, and individual poems and authors), and prose (collections, general criticism, major translators of King Alfred’s reign, major writers of the later period, other religious prose, chronicles, laws and charters, and secular prose). Writings in Latin includes sections for general works, British Celtic writers, Irish writers, and Anglo-Saxon writers. The general introduction for the volume as a whole lists bibliographies, histories, anthologies, and works about prosody, prose rhythm, and language that include the Anglo-Saxon period. Vol. 1 of Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (M1385a) is still occasionally useful for its coverage of the social and political background (which NCBEL drops).

Users must familiarize themselves with the organization, remember that there is considerable unevenness of coverage in subdivisions, and consult the index volume (vol. 5) rather than the provisional index in vol. 1. Review: Fred C. Robinson, Anglia 97.2 (1979): 511–17.

Although Greenfield and Robinson, Bibliography of Publications on Old English Literature (M1670), is the source for research on Old English literature, NCBEL is still useful for studies outside the scope of the former.

Rosenthal, Joel T. Anglo-Saxon History: An Annotated Bibliography, 450–1066. New York: AMS, 1985. 177 pp. AMS Studies in the Middle Ages 7. Z2017.R67 [DA152] 016.94201.

A highly selective bibliography of primary and secondary sources for the study of Anglo-Saxon history. Confined largely to English-language works published through the early 1980s, Anglo-Saxon History excludes most Celtic and literary topics. Entries are organized alphabetically in 11 variously classified divisions: reference works and collections of essays; primary sources and scholarship on them (including chronicles, biography and hagiography, and constitutional and administrative history); general and political history (including secular biography and Vikings); constitutional and administrative history; ecclesiastical history; social and economic history; science, technology, and agriculture; place and personal names; numismatics; archaeology; and fine arts, arts, and crafts (including manuscripts). Rarely do annotations adequately describe a work (although some do offer evaluative comments). Indexed by person. Although highly selective, poorly organized in many divisions, and lacking an adequate statement of editorial policy, the work is the most current guide to scholarship on Anglo-Saxon history. For more thorough coverage of recent scholarship on some topics, see “Old English Bibliography” (M1665), “The Year’s Work in Old English Studies” (M1655), and the annual bibliography in Anglo-Saxon England (M1660). Older bibliographies still of value are the following:

Cameron, Angus, Allison Kingsmill, and Ashley Crandell Amos. Old English Word Studies: A Preliminary Author and Word Index. Toronto: U of Toronto P–Centre for Medieval Studies, U of Toronto, 1983. 192 pp. and 5 microfiche. Toronto Old English Ser. 8. Z2015.S4 C35 [PE265] 016.429.

An interim bibliography of Old English vocabulary studies (published through 1980) compiled as part of the Dictionary of Old English project (M1690). Entries are listed by author in three sections: sixteenth- and seventeenth-century manuscript dictionaries; dictionaries, encyclopedias, concordances, and glossaries; and vocabulary studies. The third section is indexed (in the accompanying microfiche) by words discussed (see pp. xiv–xv for an explanation of the indexing of variant forms). Although not exhaustive, Old English Word Studies is an essential source for the study of Old English vocabulary. A revised edition is planned after publication of the Dictionary. Reviews: Susan Cooper, Medium Ævum 54.2 (1985): 290–91; Constance B. Hieatt, English Studies in Canada 11.2 (1985): 231–32; Ilkka Mönkkönen, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 86.4 (1985): 599–601.

Tajima, Matsuji, comp. Old and Middle English Language Studies: A Classified Bibliography, 1923–1985. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1988. 391 pp. Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and Hist. of Linguistic Science, Ser. 5: Lib. and Information Sources in Linguistics 13. Z2015.A1 T3 [PE123] 016.429.

A bibliography of studies, including dissertations and book reviews but excluding works in Slavic languages and most Japanese studies, published between 1923 and 1985 about Old and Middle English language. The approximately 3,900 entries are organized in 14 divisions (each with sections for general or historical studies, Old English, and Middle English): bibliographies; dictionaries, concordances, and glossaries; histories of the English language; grammars; general works; studies of the language of individual authors or works (however, numerous author studies appear without cross-references in other sections); orthography and punctuation; phonology and phonetics; morphology; syntax; lexicology, lexicography, and word formation; onomastics; dialectology; and stylistics. A few entries include a brief note on content or a list of later editions and reprints. Indexed by scholars. The lack of a subject index and cross-references means that users searching for studies of an author, an anonymous work, or a topic will find themselves skimming all entries. Although it is less accessible than it should be (with some entries not seen by the compiler) and although it excludes important studies published within critical editions, Tajima provides the fullest list of twentieth-century scholarship on Old and Middle English language. Review: George Jack, Diachronica 6.1 (1989): 151–54.

Dictionary of Old English A–G (DOE). Ed. Angus Cameron, Ashley Crandell Amos, and Antonette diPaolo Healey. Vers. 1.0. University of Toronto Libraries. Pontifical Inst. of Mediaeval Studies for Dictionary of Old English Project, 2007. 25 Apr. 2012. <http://tapor.library.utoronto.ca/doe/dict/index.html>.

Dictionary of Old English: A–G on CD-ROM. Vers. 2.0. U of Toronto, 2008. Also published on microfiche; the early entries are revised in the electronic versions. (Publication began in 1986 with fascicle D; when complete, DOE will be issued in hard copy.)

A dictionary of Old English (600–1150) that excludes only place and personal names. There are three types of entries: common words receive full entries; rarer words, exhaustive ones; and grammar words, special entries. A full entry consists of headword (usually in late West-Saxon spelling), grammatical details, variant spellings, occurrence and usage information, definitions, illustrative citations (with hyperlinks to the full bibliographical information on texts and editions used; citations in the microfiches are keyed to the accompanying List of Texts and Index of Editions and to Pauline A. Thompson, Abbreviations for Latin Sources and Bibliography of Editions [1992; 50 pp.]), Latin equivalents in the same manuscript, typical collocations, and references to the Middle English Dictionary (M1860), English Dialect Dictionary (M1415), Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (O3090a), and Oxford English Dictionary (M1410; the electronic versions are linked to the OED Online). The DOE Online and the CD-ROM, which include revisions to the A–E microfiche, offer simple and Boolean searches of entry fields and allow users to browse by headword. Users must read the Search Tips screen (under Help) before initiating a pattern search. Editorial practices are outlined in the Preface (1987; 14 pp.), in prefaces to the individual microfiche fascicles, and in the electronic versions (under Entry Format). Progress reports appear regularly in Old English Newsletter; a discussion of the research for and possible uses of the Dictionary may be found in A. C. Amos, “The Dictionary of Old English,” Sources of Anglo-Saxon Culture, ed. Paul E. Szarmach (Kalamazoo: Medieval Inst., Western Michigan U, 1986; Studies in Medieval Culture 20) 407–13, and in two essays by Healey: “The Search for Meaning,” The Editing of Old English: Papers from the 1990 Manchester Conference, ed. D. G. Scrazz and Paul E. Szarmach (Woodbridge: Brewer, 1994) 85–96, and ““Reasonable Doubt, Reasoned Choice: The Letter A in the Dictionary of Old English ”,” Studies in English Language and Literature: “Doubt Wisely”: Papers in Honour of E. G. Stanley, ed. M. J. Toswell and E. M. Tyler (London: Routledge, 1996) 71–84. For the importance of the DOE to the study of Old English syntax, see William F. Koopman, ““The Study of Old English Syntax and the Toronto Dictionary of Old English ”,” Neophilologus 76.4 (1992): 605–15. Although DOE omits etymologies, it is an invaluable resource for linguists and literary scholars that will, when complete, supersede the Bosworth-Toller Dictionary (M1695). Reviews: Janet Bately, Notes and Queries 40.4 (1993): 510–12; Daniel Donoghue, Speculum 64.1 (1989): 155–57; R. D. Fulk, JEGP: Journal of English and Germanic Philology 90.1 (1991): 125–28; Mark Griffith, Medium Ævum 59.1 (1990): 148–52, and 63.1 (1994): 121–23; Joy Jenkyns, Review of English Studies ns 42.167 (1991): 380–416; Lucia Kornexl, Anglia 112.2 (1994): 421–53; Hans Sauer, Mitteilungen des Verbandes deutscher Anglisten 3.2 (1992): 41–53; Jonathan Wilcox, Philological Quarterly 71.1 (1992): 127–30.

The DOE project has been the source of other important reference works: Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus (M1705); Cameron, “A List of Old English Texts” (M1705a); and Cameron, Kingsmill, and Amos, Old English Word Studies (M1685).

Bosworth, Joseph. An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Ed. and enl. by T. Northcote Toller. 4 pts. Oxford: Clarendon–Oxford UP, 1882–98. Rpt. in 1 vol., 1898. 1,302 pp. Toller. Supplement. 3 pts. 1908–21. Rpt. in 1 vol., 1921. 768 pp. Both the Dictionary and Supplement are online at http://bosworth.ff.cuni.cz. Alistair Campbell. Enlarged Addenda and Corrigenda to the Supplement. 1972. 68 pp. PE279.B5 429.3.

The most complete Anglo-Saxon dictionary currently available. A typical entry includes part of speech, definition, Latin equivalents, illustrative passages (with modern English translation), etymology, and cross-references to variant and related forms. Campbell’s Enlarged Addenda incorporates Toller’s additions published in Modern Language Review 17 (1922): 165–66; 19 (1924): 200–04. Inconsistencies and unevenness in treatment occur, since editorial practices changed during the course of publication (e.g., in the Dictionary different forms are listed separately in the earlier part of the alphabet but grouped under a single form in the latter part); there are errors and omissions; and definitions of rare or difficult words are not always accurate. But until Dictionary of Old English (M1690) is complete, Bosworth-Toller remains the most authoritative dictionary. Reviews: Edward M. Brown, Journal of Germanic Philology 3.4 (1901): 505–09; Otto B. Schlutter, JEGP: Journal of English and Germanic Philology 18.1 (1919): 137–43.

The best concise dictionary is John R. Clark Hall, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1960; 432 pp.), which includes a supplement by Herbert D. Meritt.

The best source for etymology is F. Holthausen, Altenglisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (Heidelberg: Winter, 1934; 428 pp.; Germanische Bibliothek, Reihe 4: Wörterbücher 7), with additions and corrections in Alfred Bammesberger, Beiträge zu einem etymologischen Wörterbuch des Altenglischen, Anglistische Forschungen 139 (Heidelberg: Winter, 1979; 156 pp.).

Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources. Ed. R. E. Latham and D. R. Howlett. London: Oxford UP for British Acad., 1975– . (Published in fascicles; for the publication schedule, see http://www.dmlbs.ox.ac.uk.) PA2891.L28 473′.21.

A dictionary of the Latin language used in Great Britain from c. 550 to c. 1550, but excluding most personal and place-names as well as Irish sources before 1200 because of their inclusion in Dictionary of Medieval Latin from Celtic Sources (in progress; see http://journals.eecs.qub.ac.uk/DMLCS/index.html) and covering Welsh sources very selectively. Classical Latin words used with little change are given brief entries; fuller treatment is accorded postclassical words and usages, with the fullest entries going to distinctly British words and usages. An entry provides basic meaning(s), accompanied by an extensive list of quotations to illustrate nuances of meaning. Arabic etymologies in the Dictionary are more fully explained in J. D. Latham, “Arabic into Medieval Latin,” Journal of Semitic Studies 17.1 (1972): 30–67; 21.1-2 (1976): 120–37; 34.2 (1989): 459–69. Users should note that the original prefatory matter is reprinted along with a supplementary bibliography at the end of fasc. 5; this is meant to replace the prefatory matter to fasc. 1 when fascs. 1–5 are bound as vol. 1. For the history of the Dictionary and a description of current editorial practice, see Richard Ashdowne, “Ut Latine minus vulgariter magis loquamur: The Making of the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources,” Classical Dictionaries: Past, Present, and Future, ed. Christopher Stray (London: Duckworth, 2010) 195–222, the indispensable source for interpreting early British writings in Latin. Until the work is complete, R. E. Latham, ed., Revised Medieval Latin Word-List from British and Irish Sources (London: Oxford UP for British Acad., 1980; 535 pp.; a reprint of the 1965 edition along with a supplement listing additions and corrections), provides basic meanings for words. Review: (fasc. 1) A. B. Scott, Medium Ævum 46.1 (1977): 105–08.

Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus. Ed. Antonette diPaolo Healey. University of Toronto Libraries. Dictionary of Old English Project, 2009. 23 Nov. 2012. <http://tapor.library.utoronto.ca/doecorpus/>.

An electronic corpus of all extant Old English texts (except for some variants in manuscripts of individual works) as well as of the Latin texts attached to them. The search engine allows users to create their own concordances of words or phrases (though users must search all spelling variants to construct a full list; variants are listed in the Old English Word Wheel in Web Corpus). Basic, Boolean, and proximity searches can be limited to a class (prose, verse, or gloss) and to a specific work; doing the latter requires that one know the entry number or short title used in Cameron, “A List of Old English Texts” (see below), which can be found through the site’s Bibliography Searches screen. For an explanation of how the corpus can be used, see Healey, ““The Dictionary of Old English Corpus on the World-Wide Web”,” Old English Newsletter 33.1 (1999): 21–28 (reprinted from Medieval English Studies Newsletter 40 [1999]: 2–10). Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus is an incomparable resource for linguistic studies, thematic investigations, and stylistic analyses. It effectively supersedes the following:

Edmonds, Flora, Christian Kay, Jane Roberts, and Irené Wotherspoon. Thesaurus of Old English. University of Glasgow. U of Glasgow, 2005. 23 Nov. 2012. <http://libra.englang.arts.gla.ac.uk/oethesaurus>.

An online expanded version of Jane Roberts and Christian Kay, A Thesaurus of Old English, new impression, 2 vols., Costerus ns 131–32 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000), that allows users to browse entries or to search the database by Old English word or phrase, modern English word, or tags (indicating that a word appears infrequently or only in poetry or in glosses or glossaries).

Much of the data in Thesaurus of Old English is incorporated into Kay et al., Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary (M1420).

Mitchell, Bruce. Old English Syntax. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon–Oxford UP, 1985. PE213.M5 429′.5.

A detailed study of the principles of Old English syntax using “the formal descriptive approach and traditional Latin-based grammar.” Vol. 1 examines concord, parts of speech, and sentence parts; vol. 2, subordinate clauses, other sentence elements and their order, and problems specifically related to poetry. An afterword (pp. 1000–05) prints additions to vol. 2. Throughout, Mitchell examines problems of interpretation in literary texts, emphasizes areas needing further study, and rigorously evaluates existing scholarship (which is more fully surveyed in his Critical Bibliography of Old English Syntax [below]). Includes a selective bibliography, a general index to each volume, and two cumulative indexes: words and phrases; passages discussed (authors are indexed in Critical Bibliography [below]). A seminal work, Old English Syntax admirably fulfills the author’s intent to provide a basis for definitive studies of individual topics and eventually “an authoritative Old English Syntax.” For Mitchell’s response to reviews and a list of additions and corrections, see ““ Old English Syntax: A Review of the Reviews”,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 91.3 (1990): 273–93; lists of reviews and additions and corrections are also printed in Critical Bibliography 239–47 (below). Reviews: R. D. Fulk, Philological Quarterly 66.2 (1987): 279–83; Stanley B. Greenfield, JEGP: Journal of English and Germanic Philology 86.3 (1987): 392–99; Willem Koopman, Neophilologus 71.3 (1987): 460–66; T. A. Shippey, TLS: Times Literary Supplement 28 June 1985: 716.

Old English Syntax must be used with Mitchell, A Critical Bibliography of Old English Syntax to the End of 1984 Including Addenda and Corrigenda to Old English Syntax (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990; 269 pp.), and Mitchell and Susan Irvine, “A Critical Bibliography of Old English Syntax: Supplement, 1985–[2000],” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 93.1 (1992): 1–56; 97.1 (1996): 1–28; 97.2 (1996): 121–61; 97.3 (1996): 255–78; 103.1 (2002): 3–32; 103.2 (2002): 179–204; 103.3 (2002): 275–304; 107.1 (2006): 91–116; 107.2 (2006): 169–85 with entries organized chronologically within classified divisions that usually match the organization of Old English Syntax. As in Old English Syntax, Mitchell is forthright and blunt (or rancorous, in at least one reviewer’s opinion) in his evaluations. Works that “can be safely disregarded by the general reader” are marked by a dagger and generally receive no further comment; a symbol resembling crossed swords identifies studies that are “written from a ‘modern linguistic’ viewpoint and often call for no further comment” (for Mitchell’s prejudice against such studies see the introduction to Old English Syntax and ““ Old English Syntax: A Review of the Reviews”” [above]); a double dagger indicates works evaluated in Old English Syntax. Entries not preceded by one of the symbols are usually accompanied by full (usually evaluative) annotations; some, though, are for studies that, despite their titles, have little relevance to Old English. Reviews are cited as part of entries for books. The main volume concludes with three appendixes: a list of reviews of Old English Syntax; additions and corrections to Old English Syntax; and comments by reviewers that Mitchell did not accept. Two indexes in both the main volume and the supplement: subjects; authors and reviewers (including citations in Old English Syntax; to obtain a revised index of authors and reviewers, see p. 56 of the supplement). Admirably thorough in coverage, Critical Bibliography of Old English Syntax certainly fulfills the promise of the “critical” in its title and, if used with due regard to the clearly articulated prejudices of the foremost scholar of the subject, is an invaluable guide to scholarship on Old English syntax.

Hogg, Richard M., and R. D. Fulk. A Grammar of Old English. 2 vols. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1992–2011. PE131.H64 429′.82421.

A detailed historical grammar of Old English, covering phonology (vol. 1), morphology (vol. 2), and almost all other aspects and features of the language except syntax (for which, see Mitchell, Old English Syntax [M1710]). Volume 1 concludes with an index of words discussed; volume 2 has two indexes: subjects; words discussed. Grammar of Old English is the authoritative work on the subject.

More suitable for beginners is Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson, A Guide to Old English, 8th ed. (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012; 427 pp.).

Martinez and Martinez, Guide to British Poetry Explication, vol. 1 (L1255a).