"An introduction to Early Modern English," helps students of English and linguistics to place the language of the period 1500-1700 in its historical context as a language with a common core but also one which varies across time, regionally and socially, and according to register. The volume focuses on the structure of what contemporaries called the General Dialect -- its spelling, vocabulary, grammar and punctuation -- and on its dialectal origins. The book also discusses the language situation and linguistic anxieties in England at a time when Latin exerted a strong influence on the rising standard language.