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A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s The intellectual and institutional debts of gratitude I have accumulated in writing this book are far too numerous to acknowledge in full. I am grateful for expert guidance from curators and staff of the manuscripts collections in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Bodleian Library, the British Library , the University of Cambridge Library, and the Morgan Library. My intrepid research assistants Sharon Fulton, Nicole Meline, Jess Fenn, and Micha Edlich searched out absurdly obscure publications on my behalf. Invitations to speak provoked helpful reactions from specialist and generalist audiences at the University of Cambridge, the CUNY Graduate Center, Harvard University , Kings College London, New York University, the University of Pennsylvania , and the University of Texas. I thank the editors at New Medieval Literatures, postmedieval, and Studies in the Age of Chaucer for shepherding earlier versions of some chapters through to print. The readers for the University of Pennsylvania Press and reading groups in New York and at Columbia University have provided invaluable suggestions for rewriting. With generous colleagues, including Una Chaudhuri, Aranye Fradenburg, Richard Firth Green, Jean Howard, Sarah Kay, Lisa Kiser, James Simpson, Sarah Stanbury, Paul Strohm, David Wallace, and Cary Wolfe, I have enjoyed conversations that changed my thinking and moved my work forward. I am fortunate to have had their excellent company as I wrote this book. ...

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