Page:The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Giles).djvu/16

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PREFACE.

translation as far as 1066. It was not carried further, as the projected continuation of the work was merged in the well-known series of records issued under the authority of the Master of the Rolls. In this series was afterwards (in 1861) included Mr. Thorpe's six-text edition with a translation.

A good translation, which was based on, and completed that given in Monumenta Historica Britannica, by the Rev. J. Stevenson, of Durham University, appeared in 1853.

In an edition of the Chronicle there is no satisfactory compromise between a complete collation and what is called a conflation of the various texts. Mr. Plummer has, with the assistance of Mr. Thorpe's six-text edition, brought the former plan to as near perfection as possible, and thereby, with his remarkably discerning introduction and notes, earned the gratitude of all succeeding historians and workers in the same field. For the ordinary inquirer, a cheap and handy amalgamation of the texts such as that which follows may still, it is hoped, have its more commonplace uses. It appeared originally in the same volume as the translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical History; but as this has now been superseded by Miss A. M. Sellar's version it has been found convenient to re-issue the Chronicle as an independent volume, and to introduce some improvements in its form. E. B.