The focus of this bibliography is the native literary tradition expressed in Irish and Welsh verse and prose from the earliest time to circa 1450. Priority is given to the most recent critical works and editions, provided that they supersede previous ones; however, earlier scholarly work and critical editions of texts that are now regarded as classics are also included. Because of the highly selective nature of this bibliography, Rachel Bromwich includes only a few studies on early legal texts, historical background, ecclesiastical learning, hagiography, archaeology and art, and folklore. The bibliography is divided into five chapters, of which two are intended for newcomers to the field and list the more available works of reference and aids to language study. The remaining three are devoted to literary history and criticism, texts and translations, and background material. The more than 500 entries have been arranged to show the ways in which the medieval literature of Ireland and Wales pursue parallel courses. In each chapter a general and comparative section is followed by sub-sections dealing with Irish material (including Cornish and Breton). Within each of these sub-sections individual items dealing with similar or closely related topics have been grouped together. Since this work is intended primarily for students working in English, the majority of the listings are in English, but important works in Irish, Welsh, French, and German are also cited.

The first full account of North America’s largest collection of traditional Irish-language manuscripts. Harvard University has the largest collection of Irish-language codices in North America, held in Houghton Library, its rare book repository. The manuscripts are a part of the age-old heritage of Irish book production, dating to the early Middle Ages. Handwritten works in Houghton contain versions of medieval poetry and sagas, recopied in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to which period most of the library’s documents belong. Contemporary writings from that time, as well as ones by the post-Famine Irish immigrant community in the United States, are included. This catalogue describes the collection in full for the first time and will be an invaluable aid to research on Irish and Irish American cultural and literary output. The author’s introduction examines how the collection was formed. This untold story is an important chapter in America’s intellectual history, reflecting a phase of unprecedented expansion in Harvard University’s scholarship and teaching during the early twentieth century when the institution’s program of studies began to accommodate an increasing range of European languages and literatures and their sources. This indispensable guide to a major repository’s records of the Irish past, and of America’s Irish diaspora, will interest specialists in early and post-medieval codices. It should prove of relevance as well to scholars and students of comparative literature, cultural studies, and Irish and Irish American history.