About the Author

Michael Alexander recently retired from the chair of English Literature at the University of St Andrews. For Penguin he has translated, The Earliest English Poems, The Canterbury Tales- The First Fragment, as well as a prose translation of Beowulf. His verse translations of The Earliest English Poems and Beowulf have sold over half a million copies in Penguin, for whom he has also edited Beowulf and The Canterbury Tales- The First Fragment.