The opening of Preface
The publication of this book may most conveniently be explained by a short account of the circumstances which brought it about.
While engaged some years ago in studying the Chaucer manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, I incidentally turned my attention also to those of the Confessio Amantis. The unsatisfactory character of the existing editions of that poem was sufficiently well known, and it was generally recognized that the printed text could not safely be referred to by philologists, except so far as those small portions were concerned which happened to have been published from a good manuscript by Mr. A. J. Ellis in his Early English Pronunciation; so that, in spite of the acknowledged importance of the book in the history of the development of standard literary English, it was practically useless for linguistic studies. I was struck by the excellence of the authorities for its text which existed at Oxford, and on further investigation I convinced myself that it was here that the much needed new edition could best be produced.