Old English Tradition contains eighteen new essays by leading scholars in the field of Old English literary studies. The collection is centered around five key areas of research—Old English poetics, Anglo-Saxon Christianity, Beowulf, codicology, and early Anglo-Saxon studies—on which the work of scholar J. R. Hall, the volume’s honorand, has been influential over the course of his career.  

The volume’s contents range from fresh insights on individual Old English poems such as The Wife’s Lament and Beowulf; new studies in Old English metrics and linguistics; codicological examinations of individual manuscripts; fresh editions of understudied texts; and innovative examinations of the role of early antiquarians in shaping the field of Old English literary studies as we know it today.