Title: Beowulf and the Beowulf manuscript
First published: 1981
Description: When this book first appeared in 1981, most scholars agreed that Beowulf was an early eighth-century poem and few of them had shown any interest in the early eleventh-century manuscript that preserved it. Today they disagree widely, dating the poem anywhere between the eighth and the eleventh century.

The single surviving manuscript in The British Library has become a new focus of interest as historians, linguists, literary critics, theorists, palaeographers, and codicologists all debate issues relating to the unique physical context in which the poem survives. With its extensive and seminal discussion of these issues, Beowulf and the Beowulf Manuscript remains at the centre of these debates.
Subjects: Beowulf, British Library, British Museum. Mss. (Cottonian Vitellius A. XV), Criticism, Textual, Dragons in literature, Editing, English Paleography, Epic poetry, English (Old), Heroes in literature, In literature, Manuscript dating, Manuscripts, Manuscripts, Anglo-Saxon, Manuscripts, English (Old), Manuscripts, Medieval, Medieval Manuscripts, Monsters in literature, Nowell codex, Paleography, English, Textual Criticism, British Museum
Places: England, Scandinavia