A Comprehensive Study of Layamon's Brut. By Thomas Harford. Studies in Mediaeval Literature Volume 21. Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2002. Pp. iii + 184. $99.95.

The title of this book may mislead. Its spelling of the author as "Layamon" appears more correctly in the body of the text as Layamon, as in British Library, MS Cotton Caligula A.ix; the alternative is Lawman (as this reviewer prefers), which is the modern equivalent of Lawemon, as the poet's name is spelled in the only other manuscript copy of The Brut, British Library, MS Cotton Otho C.xiii (on the name see John Frankis, Leeds Studies in English, 34 [2003] and Medium Ævum, 73 [2004]). More importantly, this is not a comprehensive study: text and bibliography do not take into account the great number of articles and collective volumes on Lawman's Brut since the late 1990s. Nor is it any longer true that "The Brut is a work more widely studied than admired and more often bypassed than actually read" (p. i): historians as well as literary students (including undergraduates) are increasingly reading the work—and not always in the three recently published translations either!

Rosamund Allen
University of London