This collection of readings, originally published by Prentice Hall in 1974, illustrates the development of the language by as many styles and levels of discourse as possible. Among the sample selections: King Alfred's Preface to Pope Gregory's Pastoral Care; The Lord's Prayer, Old English to Modern English; Chaucer's General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales; The Ancrene Riwle ó English and Anglo-Norman Texts; Piers Plowman; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Malory's Book of King Arthur; Two Letters by Queen Elizabeth; The King James Bible; Jonathan Edward's Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God; and Joel Chandler Harris's Mingo and Nights With Uncle Remus.