Chaucer and the Norse and Celtic Worlds. By Rory Mcturk. Aldershot, Hampshire/ burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 2005. Pp. xi + 218. $89.95.

The collocation of subjects in the title of this volume reflects the wide range of its author's expertise, but also obscures what emerges as a far more pointed thesis that medieval Irish tradition directly influenced both the fourteenth-century Middle English poet Geoffrey Chaucer and, as a less developed corollary, the anonymous thirteenth-century Icelandic author of Laxdæla Saga.

Craig R. Davis
Smith College