The early thirteenth-century guide for women recluses, Ancrene Wisse, is not only the major surviving work in early Middle English prose, and one which was influential throughout the medieval period; it was an important document in the history of European pastoral literature. This edition is the first to draw upon the evidence of all surviving manuscripts, using a corrected version of the Corpus text as a "point of entry" to the text's history, as it was revised and adapted by its author and successors for the needs of the changing audiences. Volume I contains the text and full critical apparatus; volume II concludes the edition and contains the General Introduction, setting the work in its broad cultural and institutional context, Notes to the Text, and Glossary. Bella Millett is Reader in English at the University of Southampton.
Books can be attributed to "Anonymous" for several reasons:
* They are officially published under that name * They are traditional stories not attributed to a specific author * They are religious texts not generally attributed to a specific author
Books whose authorship is merely uncertain should be attributed to Unknown.