`The Index of Middle English Prose when completed will be a monumental achievement.' REVIEW OF ENGLISH STUDIES

This handlist indexes 82 manuscripts from twelve Midlands collections. The collections examined are diverse in origin: the cathedral libraries include Hereford and Worcester, whose collections include manuscripts in their possession continuously since the middle ages, and Gloucester, Lichfield, Peterborough and Southwell Minster, whose early libraries were largely dispersed at the dissolution or during the Civil War and whose present libraries are modern foundations. Also included are manuscripts on deposit in Record Offices in Gloucester and Leicester, the private collections on deposit in Nottingham University Library and manuscripts acquired by university or college libraries in the twentieth century. Of note are several Wycliffite bibles, a number of sermon collections (including one not previously described), several works by Rolle, Hilton's 'Scale of Perfection', Chaucer's prose tales and the chronicle 'Brut'. Dr VALERIE EDDEN is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English, University of Birmingham.