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This Middle English romance, which survives uniquely in Manchester, Chetham's Library MS 8009 (Mun.A.6.31), along with fragments of two sixteenth-century prints, has not been edited in a published edition since Erich Adam's 1887 edition for EETS. For this reason alone, Wade is to be thanked for making this text newly accessible. Wade's edition merits reading because it is an important witness to Middle English romance's popularity and influence in late medieval England, and it is a good story. As Wade notes in the Introduction, Sir Torrent 'is a rollicking tale of love and adventure' and is 'chock-full of what might be called generic accoutrement' (p. 1)—an unmistakably apt summary.
This tale follows the adventures of Torrent, the son of a Portuguese earl, who falls in love with Desonell, the daughter of the Portuguese king. Torrent has to overcome a series of challenges in order to win Desonell's hand, and even then, in contradiction to his promise, the King of Portugal refuses to let his daughter marry Torrent, instead banishing Desonell and the two sons she had with Torrent. The sons are duly separated from the mother, and Torrent then wanders the world in mourning for what he believes to be his deceased family. As is standard for the genre, all are eventually reunited and justice is reinstituted by the story's conclusion. Readers versed in Middle English romance will immediately...