Although Virgil’s Aeneid was one of the most widely admired works of the European Middle Ages, the first complete translation to appear in any form of English was Gavin Douglas’s magisterial verse rendering into Older Scots, completed in 1513, which he called the Eneados . It included not only the twelve books of Virgil’s original, but a thirteenth added by the Italian humanist scholar Maphaeus Vegius, and lively, original prologues to every book. D.F.C. Coldwell’s four-volume modern edition of it was published in 1957-64 for the Scottish Text Society, but for some time now has needed revision.

Professor Bawcutt’s new edition, based on Cambridge, Trinity College Library MS O.3.12, presents a substantially revised and corrected version of Coldwell’s text and variants. The first volume contains the introduction and commentary. offereing a wealth of new scholarship on the Eneados ,including a comparison of Douglas’s text to his exact Latin source, detailed analyses of the manuscript and print witnesses and the Eneados’s early reception and circulation, and a critical survey of modern Douglas criticism. The second and third volumes contains the text and variants.