Families of the King: Writing Identity in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. by Alice Sheppard. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. Pp. x + 266. $70.

The ongoing publication of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1986­ ) has inspired a resurgence in interest in the manuscript contexts of the most expansive and least-understood text in the Anglo-Saxon canon. Ranging across six extant manuscripts, plus two fragments, that span more than two centuries of production and come from all over England, the Chronicle has long challenged scholars with its complexity. With the six main manuscripts now available in authoritative editions, scholars have embraced the Chronicle in spite of its unwieldy nature and the plethora of interpretive dilemmas it presents. Alice Sheppard's Families of the King is a splendid addition to this trend.

Renée R. Trilling
University of Illinois