Medieval Life of King Alfred the Great

ALFRED SMYTH is Director of Research and Head of the Graduate School, Canterbury Christ Church University College. Formerly Master of Keynes College, University of Kent and Warden of St. George's House, Windsor Castle.

• Abbreviations Introduction [A]Translation of the Life of King Alfred [B] Commentary A Tour Around the Manuscripts The Author of the Life The Author's Latin Style The Author's Use of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Why Was the Life of King Alfred Written at Ramsay in C.A.D. 1000? Index

'Alfred Smyth's The Medieval Life of King Alfred the Great is a pathbreaking work...a sophisticated introduction and study of the entire field of Alfredian biography, ancient and modern...The Medieval Life of King Alfred the Great also serves as an excellent introduction to the text of the Life itself and to the controversies surrounding its creation and history.' - Professor Daniel Melia, University of California, Berkeley 'Alfred Smyth's new translation and commentary challenges consensus opinion at every level...an extensive commentary relates the Life to the new and still-developing awareness of historical writing in the late Anglo-Saxon period...Smyth's text asks new questions and provides new answers, offering a more complex account of the origins of England, and of English History, than has been possible to date.' - Tom Shippey, Saint Louis University, Missouri '...this translation...is useful for presenting a version without many of the previous editorial emendations...' - J.L. Leland, Choice Reviews from previous book: 'Smyth's book, then, must stand as the definitive account of the reign.' - Peter Ackroyd, The Times 'This is a glorious book. It rescues a great English ruler from some of the more obtuse concepts and prejudices of our own time, and builds more carefully on ninth-century foundations than any other biography yet published.' - Eric Christiansen, The Spectator