Publisher's description and from the back cover:
The paperback edition, in four volumes, of this standard work will make it readily available to students.
The scope of the work makes it valuable as a work of reference, connecting one period with another and placing each author clearly in the setting of his time.
Reviewing the first edition, The Times Literary Supplement commented: 'in inclusiveness and in judgment it has few rivals of its kind'.
This first volume covers The Middle Ages (to 1500) in two sections: The Old English Period (to 1100) by Kemp Malone (John Hopkins University), and The Middle English Period (1100-1500) by Albert C. Baugh (University of Pennsylvania).

Contents:
page V Preface to the First Edition
VI Note to Second Edition
VIII List of Abbreviations
Part I. The Old English Period (to 1100)
3 CHAPTER I. Folk, State, and Speech
12 CHAPTER II. Anglo-Latin Writings
20 CHAPTER III. The Old Tradition: Poetic Form
32 CHAPTER IV. The Old Tradition: Popular Poetry
45 CHAPTER V. The Old Tradition: Courtly Poetry
60 CHAPTER VI. Religious Poetry: Cædmon and His School
70 CHAPTER VII. Religious Poetry: Cynewulf and His School
78 CHAPTER VIII. Religious Poetry: Poems on Various Themes
88 CHAPTER IX. Religious Poetry
96 CHAPTER X. Literary Prose
Part II. The Middle English Period (1100-1500)
109 CHAPTER I. General Characteristics of the Period
117 CHAPTER II. Survival of the Native Tradition (1100-1250)
127 CHAPTER III. The Ancrene Riwle
135 CHAPTER IV. Anglo-Norman Literature
143 CHAPTER V. Early Latin Writers
152 CHAPTER VI. Wit and Wisdom
158 CHAPTER VII. For Their Soul's Need
165 CHAPTER VIII. The Arthurian Legend to Layamon
173 CHAPTER IX. The Romance: I
185 CHAPTER X. The Romance: II
200 CHAPTER XI. The Omnibus of Religion
208 CHAPTER XII. The Lyric
225 CHAPTER XIII. Richard Rolle and Other Mystics
232 CHAPTER XIV. The Alliterative Revival
240 CHAPTER XV. Piers Plowman and Other Alliterative Poems
249 CHAPTER XVI. Chaucer: I
258 CHAPTER XVII. Chaucer: II
264 CHAPTER XVIII. Other Contemporaries of Chaucer
273 CHAPTER XIX. The Beginnings of the Drama
288 CHAPTER XX. Ebb Tide
300 CHAPTER XXI. Looking Forward
313 Bibliographical Supplement
I Index