The Anglo-Saxon World

very nice

I found marks in the back cover made with possibly a ball point pen (see picture). There were also bits of residual adhesive for some reason. Otherwise, great book.

Book was in great condition.

As someone who knew very little of the Dark Age/Early Middle Ages world that the Anglo-Saxons lived in, I can safely say that this is the best introduction I could have looked for. It is not a direct historical/chronological work, but it is not supposed to be that. What it is is a fantastic journey through the history, culture, religion and literature of the Anglo-Saxons, including some fantastic battle poems like the Battle of Maldon, one of the greatest epics ever put down (Beowulf) and some truly beautiful poems (Deor, The Wanderer, The Seafarer etc etc). I cannot praise this book enough. It is easy to read and truly fascinating. Once you've got this I'd suggest the Penguin history of the Anglo-Saxons to give you a context for these great works!

i liked the translations very much, good additional infos regarding their making and the details mentioned in them

I really can not recommend this collection highly enough. This book consists of several Anglo-Saxon texts, some excerpted, some in their entirety, of various types. It has, various forms of poetry, heroic, elegiac, epic, religious, it has historical texts, educational texts, legal texts, medical texts, all sorts of things. Although there’s lots of stuff in here that’s available elsewhere, especially the poetry and historical material, there’s also plenty of stuff that probably isn’t easy to find in a popular translation, and thus wouldn’t be very accessible to non-academics. All in all it provides a very good overview of the Anglo-Saxon world, it’s culture and history (although in the latter case it doesn’t go into much detail for the most part). One might complain that the translations for the poetry are not the best out there, but that misses the point somewhat, as the poetry is not presented here primarily for literary merit but for understanding of the themes and cultural ideas that the poetry focuses on, and the place poetry had in the broader Anglo-Saxon culture. If you want better translations of the poetry you’re better off finding a collection that focuses exclusively on poetry. The only other problem is that there are no annotations. There are short introductions for each of the sections of texts, but I don’t think they really provide sufficient context and information on their own. Annotations would’ve been nice in that regard. If you’re at all interested in medieval culture or the Anglo-Saxons in particular I would recommend this book.

A wonderful overview of the period and culture. Not just literature but laws, religious and history primary sources as well. Easy to read; just wish there was a map to go with all the locations/kings he mentions. Translations very smooth.