“This ground-breaking book includes insightful and thorough analyses of a large number of features in the history of English, offering numerous new starting-points and theoretical considerations. Indispensable for all students and scholars of English historical linguistics and philology.” Matti Rissanen, University of Helsinki, Finland

“A wonderful encapsulation of the field by cutting-edge scholars, inspired by the fin de siècle burst of research success in English historical linguistics. A must-read for all English language historians interested in how far we have come toward resolving the issues left open by Jespersen, Luick, Wyld, Sweet, and the other great philologists. It offers vastly deeper access to these problems, both through computer corpora and through new theoretical insights. Brilliant and often definitive.” Robert Stockwell, UCLA

"As with The Handbook of English Linguistics, I enjoyed different insights and would also use it for state-of-the-art summaries and additional reading."
Elly Van Gelderen, Arizona State University