This volume presents a selection of essays on northern saga, chronicle and romance written over a period of forty years by the late Professor Robert Cook (1932-2011), one of the most insightful scholars of his generation in the fields of medieval English, European and in particular Icelandic literature. All the articles have previously appeared in print in academic journals or cenference preprints; the present volume gathers them together in more readily accessible form. They are organised into sections that refelct three of Robert’s primary scholarly interests: Íslendingasögur (the Sagas of Icelanders), historical writing in post-Reformation Iceland, and the reception in medieval Scandinavia of works by Chrétien de Troyes and Marie de France.

Robert Cook was a professor of English at Tulane University in New Orleans, USA (1962-1989), and then at the University of Iceland, Reykjavík, until his retirement in 2002.