A. S. G. Edwards is Honorary Professor of Medieval Manuscripts at the University of Kent at Canterbury. The late Derek Pearsall was Emeritus Gurney Professor of Middle English Literature at Harvard University; he wrote extensively on Chaucer, Gower, Langland and Lydgate, including biographies of Chaucer and Lydgate, an edition of the C-text of Langland's Piers Plowman. JANE GILBERT is Professor of Medieval Literature and Critical Theory at University College London, UK. NICHOLAS WATSON teaches English at Harvard University. His research focuses on medieval English and North European literature, intellectual history, visionary writing and the role of the written vernacular.