Rhiannon Purdie

My main research interests are in Older Scots literature, later Middle English literature, medieval romance, and textual editing. I am the Editorial Secretary for the Scottish Text Society (for whom I edited Shorter Scottish Medieval Romances in 2013): I have also published scholarly editions with TEAMS (Six Scottish Courtly and Chivalric Poems including Lyndsay's Squyer Meldrum, co-ed. with Emily Wingfield, 2018)  and the Early English Text Society (Ipomadon, 2001). I have published books and articles on Older Scots literature, medieval romance and Chaucer as well as supervising PhD theses on topics such as Arthurian legend in pre-Modern Scotland, Middle English romance, Older Scots narrative craft, women's engagement with literary culture in pre-modern Scotland, and the medieval roots of the Gothic novel. I held a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship 2021-23; in 2016 I was a Fulbright research fellow at the University of Rochester, NY. I am the outgoing Chair of the Scottish Medievalists (until January 2025), and I remain a series co-editor for Boydell & Brewer's 'Studies in Medieval Romance'.
I founded and manage the 'Read Older Scots' initiative, designed to make pre-Modern literature (roughly pre-1700) in Scots better known and more accessible to modern readers:  https://readolderscots.scot/

My main research interests are in Middle English and Older Scots literature and the theory and practice of textual editing.