The fifty-plus extant manuscripts of Piers Plowman have always posed a puzzle to editors and readers. This 1996 book is an account of the editions of the poem which have appeared since 1550, when it was first published by the protestant reformer Robert Crowley. It examines the circumstances in which the editions were produced, the lives and intellectual motivations of the editors, and the relationship between one edition and the next. Brewer places...