Bibliography
Other info : Furtherreading
WRITINGS BY THE AUTHOR: MAJOR WORK
- Piers Plowman (circa 1360-circa 1390)
- Manuscripts:Piers Plowman survives in fifty-two known manuscripts. Robert Crowley's first printing of 1550 represents a lost manuscript, and Crowley's second and third printings represent still another lost manuscript and three fragments that do not derive from any known surviving copy. Of the surviving complete texts, ten are of the A-text, twelve of the B-text, and eighteen of the C-text. The remainder are composites. The most recent critical editions of the three versions are corrected from other manuscripts but based upon the following: [A-text] Trinity College Cambridge R.3.14, also known as T, a conjoint AC manuscript (C after A, X1) written in one good English vernacular hand about 1400; [B-text] Trinity College Cambridge B.15.17, also known as W, written in one anglicana formata hand about 1400; [C-text] Huntington Library HM 143, also known as X. Facsimile: Piers Plowman: The Huntington Library Manuscript (HM 143) (San Marino, Cal., 1936). Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS. Bodley 851 (Z) and Huntington Library, MS. 114 (Ht) possibly represent other textual traditions but are more likely to be pastiches.
- First publication:The Vision of Pierce Plowman (London: Printed by Roberte Crowley, ).
- Standard editions:The Vision of William Concerning Piers Plowman, 5 volumes, edited by Walter W. Skeat, EETS, o.s. 28, 38, 54, 67, 81 (1867-1885); The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman in Three Parallel Texts, 2 volumes, edited by Skeat (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1886; reprinted, with additional bibliography by J. A. W. Bennett, 1954); Piers Plowman: The A Version. Will's Vision of Piers Plowman and Do-Well, edited by George Kane (London: Athlone Press, 1960); Piers Plowman: The B Version. Will's Visions of Piers Plowman, Do-Well, Do-Better and Do-Best, edited by Kane and E. Talbot Donaldson (London: Athlone Press, 1975); Piers Plowman: An Edition of the C-text, edited by Derek Pearsall, York Medieval Texts, second series (London: Edward Arnold, 1978).
- Edition in modern English:Piers the Ploughman, translated by J. F. Goodridge (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1959).
