The Complete Works of John Gower: Edited from the Manuscripts with Introductions, Notes, and Glossaries. 4 vols.

Author/Editor
Macaulay, G. C., ed.

Title
The Complete Works of John Gower: Edited from the Manuscripts with Introductions, Notes, and Glossaries. 4 vols.

Published
Macaulay, G. C., ed. The Complete Works of John Gower: Edited from the Manuscripts with Introductions, Notes, and Glossaries. 4 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1899-1902. Reprint. Grosse Point, Michigan: Scholarly Press, 1968. Vols. 2-3 printed as The English Works of John Gower. Early English Text Society, Extra Series, Nos. 81-82. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1900-01; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957 and 1968.

Review
The venerable, standard edition of all of Gower's works, with excellent evaluative introductions, explanatory notes, and glossaries. Lists and describes most manuscripts known at the time of publication for each work: MO (I, lxvii-lxix); CB (I, lxxix-lxxxiii); Traité (I, lxxxv-lxxxvii); CA (II, cxxxviii-clxvii); VC and CrT (IV, lix-lxxi). Authoritative texts: MO based on MS. Cambridge University Library Additional 303, the only one extant; CA based on MS. Fairfax 3, carefully collated with all previous editions and MSS. Bodleian 902, 294, and Corpus Christi College 67; VC and CrT based on MS. All Souls 98, collated with all other known manuscripts; PP, CB, and Traité based on MS. Trentham; Short Latin Poems based on Trentham and Cotton Tiberius A IV. For works of questionable authorship, see II, clxxiii-clxxiv. For a useful and informative summation of all biographical information known to the time of publication, see IV, vii-xxx; for the chronology of the poems, now standard, Macaulay gives MO, prior to 1390; CB, ca. 1399; Traité, ca. 1398, CA, between 1386 and 1393; VC, ca. 1382 or shortly thereafter. Includes detailed, accurate discussions of Gower's Anglo-Norman language and versification (I, xvi-xxxiv) and Middle English (II, xcii-cxxvii), with summary descriptions of the contents of CA (II, xxix-xcii by book and line), and of VC (IV, xxxiv-lvii by book and chapter). A facsimile of the Gower-as-archer portrait is included as the frontispiece in volume IV, from MS. Cotton Tiberius A. IV, f. 9. [RFY1981; rev. MA]

Date
1899-1902

Gower Subjects
Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations
Manuscripts and Textual Studies
Backgrounds and General Criticism