20 - The Athlone A-Text

Summary

KANE AND THE ATHLONE PRESS

We have seen from the announcements made in Speculum in 1951 by Grattan that there had been some considerable changes of plan over the form and editorship of Chambers and Grattan's original edition of Piers Plowman. Changes in EETS's ‘policy’ had made their publication of the edition ‘impracticable’, and hence the editors were negotiating with the in-house press of the University of London, Athlone.

The Athlone Press was sold into private hands in 1979, and then or earlier most of its records were destroyed. Fortunately, the minutes of the Board meetings, together with a few other items, were preserved and are now accessible to readers of the University of London's library. Item 26 of the meeting of Friday 13 October 1950 records the Athlone Press Board of Management's resolution ‘That the offer by Professor A. H. Smith on behalf of himself and other scholars of a definitive edition of Piers Plowman in 6 volumes be accepted in principle, subject to the proviso that pending further discussions with the promoters the Board shall not be regarded as committed to a specific number of volumes.’ A later minute (12 October 1951) records autumn 1953 as the projected date for the submission of volume I (the A-Text), but Kane did not actually deliver his manuscript until October 1955, when he became Professor of English Language and Medieval Literature at Royal Holloway College, London (having in the interim become Reader at University College). Since Grattan's death in 1951, Kane had recast the edition of A in its entirety.