For students of Middle English, Andrew and Waldron's, "The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript" has been the key edition of the four Pearl poems (the best-known of which is "Gawain" and the "Green Knight") for 30 years. Now, with the changing needs of today's student in mind, the editors have undertaken the most comprehensive revision of the book since its inception.The revised edition includes a new introduction providing historical, literary and cultural contexts for the poems. It also incorporates a revised and updated bibliography, minor changes to the text and glossary, and significant revision and updating of the explanatory notes. In addition the authors have provided for the first time a complete prose translation of the four poems for students to use as a working tool. This is included on CD-ROM at the back of the book. Since the fifth edition involves a significant reworking of previous editions and justifies library copy replacement, a hardback library edition will be available for a limited period.This timely revision will ensure the continued dominance on medieval courses of the Andrew/Waldron edition. The prose translation on CD-ROM acknowledges the needs of today's students for a faithful translation of the original Middle English that can be used as a reference tool. The new introduction takes full account of recent scholarship on the Pearl manuscript. Andrew and Waldron's new prose translations of all four poems are based faithfully on their new edition of "The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript". The translation CD-ROM has been conceived specifically as a complement and companion to the new edition. By using prose as opposed to verse the editors have ensured that the translations remain as close and accurate to the original as possible. The prose translations are intended as a means of enhancing the understanding of these four superb but linguistically difficult poems, to help readers get to grips with the original texts.The translations are provided in pdf format on the CD-ROM for added flexibility. Using this working tool students can: interrogate the translation on screen, searching for all occurrences of a certain word or phrase within the translation; search by line number within each translation; print off excerpts or print the whole of each translation; and, use the editors' translations as a means of checking the accuracy of their own rendition of the originals.