It has been nearly 50 years since the publication of the original Plan and Bibliography (1954) by Hans Kurath (Plan) and his colleagues Margaret S. Ogden, Charles E. Palmer, and Richard L. McKelvey (Bibliography). This new edition of the Plan is a complete reshaping and rewriting of Kurath's original, with an up-to-date history of the project and a comprehensive guide to the entries and their constituent parts. The Bibliography contains all of the items used in the print dictionary, combining the original Bibliography, the supplement published in 1985, and the additions made between 1985 and 2001, when the last fascicle was published, and amounts to some 5,400 items, including over twenty-five percent again as many as in the original, with notes on date and title changes and where they occurred in the dictionary.

Robert E. Lewis is Professor Emeritus of English Language and Literature and Executive Director Emeritus of the Middle English Dictionary at the University of Michigan. He is also general editor of the Chaucer Library series, a member of the editorial board for the second edition of the "Oxford English Dictionary" (1989), and a former member of the Board of Regents of Mercersburg Academy.