The Beginnings to 1066, Vol. 1 Book

What a vast and astonishing work this series is. "Practically unreadable" my old professor would probably say, meaning it is less a series that most people (most!) will sit down with just to read cover-to-cover. But for sheer breadth of information this series is invaluable. I have only done any serious reading in this, volume I, and browsed somewhat in volume II (Middle English), but it manages to cover all of the essential historical information. The orginization is admirable: different sections written by different authors devoted to various aspects of the language, clearly divisible: this makes consulation of the book easy, for whatever particular purpose the scholar or student may have need of. Volume I contains an Introduction; the contexts of English within the Indo-European and Germanic language families; phonology and morphology; syntax; semantics and vocabulary; Old English dialects; onomastics; and literary language.