Hugh Magennis is Professor of Old English Literature at Queen's University Belfast. He has published widely on Anglo-Saxon and related writings, and his books include The Anonymous Old English Legend of the Seven Sleepers (Durham, 1994) and (with Mary Clayton) The Old English Lives of St Margaret (Cambridge, 1994).

• Acknowledgements List of AbbreviationsIntroduction The Legend of St Mary of Egypt St Mary of Egypt in the Latin West The Old English Version and its Manuscripts The Old English Texts: Issues of Transmission and Relationship Source Language Style and Register in the Old English LifeSelect Bibliography Text and Translation Editorial Procedure Old English Text Translation Commentary Variant Readings Appendix: Vita S. Mariae Egyptiacae Latin Text Translation Glossary

Dr Magennis’s … new edition of the Life of St. Mary of Egypt, published almost exactly a century after that by Skeat, leaves little to be desired. The Introduction provides all that is essential for our understanding of the Old English Life… Everything in this Introduction is marked by sound method and thorough, knowledgable analysis… Magennis’s accurate edition of the Old English text, based on Julius E.vii, is accompanied by a Modern English translation… A carefully compiled glossary to the Old English text concludes the book.