THIS half-volume and the half-volume on Chaucer and the
Fifteenth Century together give a full treatment of English
literature in the fifteenth century. For two reasons, however,
Sir Edmund Chambers's book departs from the usual principle
in this series of allotting a volume or half-volume to a particular
period. The one is that the story of the medieval drama and
the story of the ballad are better told without strict attention to
the boundaries of time; and the other is that the editors have
wished to give the author the opportunity of writing once more
on subjects which have interested him in the past--the medieval
drama, the carol and fifteenth-century lyric, and Malory. While
the contents are more miscellaneous than elsewhere in the
series, he has been able to give to the book the not inappro-
priate title, The Close of the Middle Ages.

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