Priscilla Bawcutt's study of Dunbar has been long and eagerly awaited; the book offers an authority and breadth that will not disappoint. It is a capacious, patient, affectionate authorial study - and a chef d'oeuvre - of a kind now uncommon in literary studies, at least on this side of the Atlantic. Bawcutt's careful attention to Dunbar's textual tradition is, though unassumingly presented, one of the cornerstones of the book's achievement.
