The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles is a collection of Old English annals chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxon race. They were originally compiled in Wessex during the reign of Alfred the Great (871-899 AD). It was continuously updated by following generations and in one case was still being updated in 1154 AD. Regardless of certain biases, the Chronicle is the most important historical source of history of the British Isles for the period between the departure of the Roman Empire, and years following the Norman conquest. There are seven original copies of the text that reside in the British Library and two other public libraries in the United Kingdom.Alfred the Great was the king of the West Saxons at the time of heightened invasions from the Scandinavian Vikings. His kingdom of Wessex was the last surviving Saxon kingdom left in resistance to the invaders. At one-point Alfred's kingdom was reduced to his household in exile in the marshlands in Somerset, England. Through military reorganization, diplomatic maneuvers, and Christian missionary work, Alfred was able to push back against the Scandinavians and establish Wessex as the most powerful kingdom on the British Isles. By the end of his reign Wessex was the dominant power on the British Isles, the Vikings had been humbled and partially assimilated into Christian culture. His dream of an united Britain under the control of Wessex was almost complete. Alfred is the only English King to be given the title of 'the Great'.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is among the earliest vernacular chronicles of Western Europe and remains an essential source for scholars of Anglo-Saxon and Norman England. With the publication in 2004 of a new edition of the Peterborough text, all six major manuscript versions of the Chronicle are now available in the Collaborative Edition. Reading the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle therefore presents a timely reassessment of current scholarly thinking on this most complex and most foundational of documents. This volume of collected essays examines the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle through four main aspects: the production of the text, its language, the literary character of the work, and the Chronicle as historical writing. The individual studies not only exemplify the different scholarly approaches to the Chronicle but they also cover the full chronological range of the text(s), as well as offering new contributions to well-established debates and exploring fresh avenues of research. The interdisciplinary and wide-ranging nature of the scholarship behind the volume allows Reading the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to convey the immense complexity and variety of the Chronicle, a document that survives in multiple versions and was written in multiple places, times, and political contexts.