Jeremy Smith is the University of Glasgow's Professor of English Philology, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and an Honorary Fellow of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies. His publications reflect his wide interests, which range from English historical linguistics and book history to the language of Robert Burns.

Prologue. Snatched from the fire: the case of Thomas Percy; 1. On historical pragmatics; 2. Inventing the Anglo-Saxons; 3. 'Witnesses preordained by God': the reception of Middle English religious prose; 4. The great tradition: Langland, Gower, Chaucer; 5. Forging the nation: reworking older Scottish literature; 6. On textual transformations: Walter Scott and beyond.