This affordable paperback edition contains volumes 1-11 of the hardcover edition. It is identical in content and pages, but does not include the index volumes. With a total of some 5000 alphabetically arranged articles, the 'Dictionary of Authors' presents the whole of medieval German literature. The term 'literature' as used here encompasses all writing with the exception of archival records, and thus includes not only 'belles-lettres' but also practical and occasionally ecclesiastical, legal, historical, scientific, medical, technical and commercial texts.