Piers Plowman

Scholarly and accessible, this will be an invaluable edition for both students of the poem and those specializing in the field.
C.J.S, Medium Aevum. Vol LXXVIII
Although a ‘student edition’ in that it provides help for beginners in the field, its scholarship, especially in its explanatory notes, cannot be ignored by the most seasoned scholars. Only those who have struggled in the same arena will recognize how many problems Pearsall has solved with easy grace and humility. The new text, handsomely and legibly printed, has a larger format than its predecessors, partly to accommodate marginal glosses, which Pearsall somewhat reluctantly supplies because ‘it has become a necessity in the light of the expectations of modern readers. The marginal glosses now make Pearsall’s edition a stronger competitor with Schmidt’s student edition of the B text. The annotation is the glory of Pearsall’s editions, both original and revised. We are grateful to Pearsall (as we are to Langland) that he continued to work on this poem across several decades.
Stephen A. Barney, Yearbook of Langland Studies, 23 * Yearbook of Langland Studies, 23 *
Like its predecessor thirty years ago, Derek Pearsall’s new edition of the C text Piers Plowman will be a welcome volume on the shelves of scholars, teachers, and students of the poem. As with the first edition, it is a pleasure to read a version of the poem in and for itself, with enough context provided to allow readers with a general competence in Middle English, but not deeply versed in Piers Plowman scholarship or the poem’s cultural milieu, to engage with the work. That engagement is aided by the side glosses (new in this edition); explanatory footnotes (significantly expanded from the first edition); and a revised introduction, with a very useful series of thematic notes on such overarching topics as the Dreamer, friars, Lady Meed, the seven deadly sins, and so on, expanded and transferred from their original positions in the old on-page notes. Given the reasonable price of the paperback edition, the text could well be used in advanced undergraduate as well as introductory graduate courses in Middle English Literature ... the book is generally pleasing to the eye; slightly larger-than-normal dimensions provide enough white space for easy reading, always a concern in books with apparatus in both the margins and the foot of the page ... The revised text, the enriched but still selective textual apparatus, and the extensively updated notes, introduction, and bibliography make Pearsall’s new, annotated Piers Plowman a valuable introduction to the C text as is has come to be understood over the last thirty years and an important complement to other editions of the poem.
M. Teresa Tavormina, The Journal of Speculum, Volume 85 * The Journal of Speculum, Volume 85 *