The literature of the late middle ages provides the main focus for this collection of eighteen essays, which engage with the tight interweavings of poetry, book production, and politics at a time when all three were in a state of flux. Primarily covering the period from Richard II to Mary Tudor, the essays explore such topics as medieval guides to Ovid, aspects of late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century book history, and the major court poets of the Ricardian period, Chaucer and Gower.