J.R.R. Tolkien. 
 
The Claredon Press: 1922. First edition. Soft cover in a clam shell case. Octavo. Soiling and smudges and small wrinkles on the wraps. Spine has chipping, evidence of repair on the crown and heel, and a tear on the heel. Pencil marking on the cover. Stains on the fore edge of the text block. Two old owners' names (one of which is crossed out) are written in ink on the first free page. Leaves are browned by time. A few small dots and pen strokes in the margins here and there across the book. The top and bottom corners of the pages are a little dog eared. Old bookseller's stamp on the last free page. 10 counted pages; however, the pages are given a new sequential number for every 16 pages, so the real page count is closer to 160. Good. 
 
Published early in Tolkien's scholarly career when he was a reader at Oxford, and written as a helpful accompaniment to Kenneth Sisam's collection Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose. The emphasis is on precise understandings of words used in daily life in 1300s Britain. Friendly, rigorous, and concerned with details both everyday and esoteric, just as the man himself was. This book is an excellent edition to a serious Tolkien collection. 
 
"A good working knowledge of Middle English depends less on the possession of an abstruse vocabulary than on familiarity with the ordinary machinery of expression - with the precise forms and meanings that common words may assume."