David Burnley is Head of the Department of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Sheffield. His academic career has focused on the languages and literature of the medieval period, making a special point of the connections between language, literature and culture. His previous publications include the books- Chaucer's Language and the Philosopher's Tradition (1979), The Language of Chaucer (1989), An Annotated Bibliography of the Language of Middle English Literature (with Matsuji Tajima, 1994), Courtliness and Literature in Medieval England (1998).

Preface to the First Edition Preface to the Second Edition Old English (700-1100) 1 Dialect Texts A The Vespasian Psalter gloss B The Lindisfarne Gospel gloss C A Kentish Charter 2 Alfred's Preface to the Pastoral Care 3 Credmon 4 A Homily of .tElfric 5 .tElfric's Cosmology 6 The Battle of Brunanburh 7 The Battle of Maldon Early Middle English (1100-1300) 8 The Peterborough Chronicle A First Continuation (1127) B Final Continuation (1154) 9 The Ormulum 10 Vices and Virtues 11 The Ancrene Wisse 12 A Kentish Sermon: The Marriage at Cana 13 A Proclamation of Henry III (1258) 14 The South English Legendary 15 Kyng Alisaunder Later Middle English (1300-1500) 16 Robert Mannyng's Chronicle of England 17 The Pearl 18 Geoffrey Chaucer A 'The Reeve's Tale' B Troilus and Criseyde, Prologue to Book II A Letter from the Corporation of London to Henry V (1417) 22 The Study of the Vernacular in Medieval England A The Preface to a Wycliffite Biblical Concordance B A Fifteenth-Century Text on Phonetics 23 Osbern Bokenham's Mappula Angliae A Paston letter Malory, 'The Giant of St Michael's Mount' A The Winchester text B Caxton's text 24 John Skelton, translation of the Bibliotheca Historica of Diodorus Siculus Early Modern English (1500-1800) 24 Thomas Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorique The Diary of Henry Machyn 26 John Lyly, Euphues or The Anatomy of Wit 27 Letters of Queen Elizabeth I and King James VI of Scotland A Queen Elizabeth's letter B King James's letter 28 George Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie 29 Thomas Nashe A From the Preface to Christs Teares over Jerusalem B From The Unfortunate Traveller 30 Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, Act V, scene i 31 Thomas Dekker, The Guls Horne-booke 32 John Donne A Seventeenth Meditation B 'Song' C 'The good-morrow' 33 The Letters of Lady Brilliana Harley 34 John Milton, from Paradise Lost, Book II 35 Sir Isaac Newton, Opticks 36 Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock 37 Daniel Defoe, A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain 38 From the Preface to Johnson's Dictionary 39 Fanny Burney, a letter from Bath, 8 September 1791 40 Modern English (1800-1920) 41 Thomas Carlyle, Signs of the Times 42 Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers 43 Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights 44 Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man 45 From the General Explanations to the New English Dictionary 46 Henry Bradley, Review of the New English Dictionary 47 Henry Sweet, The Practical Study of Languages 48 Soldiers' letters home in World War I A Two letters from Captain Talbot B Excerpt from a letter by Private Sweeney 49 D. H. Lawrence, 'Fanny and Annie'