Hickey, Raymond: Listening to the Past. Audio Records of Accents of English (Studies in English Language)

I am very glad that this book exists. As someone who is interested in all aspects of the phonological history of English, I find it a delight to see so much that is new and appetite-whetting gathered together in one volume, especially given that most of the chapters are discussing varieties that are far from the standard forms of English that have often been (understandably but frustratingly) the focus of much historical research. We know a lot about the history of English, but we know astonishingly little about the history of most varieties, and while parts of their history may be lost to us due to a dearth of records, this volume shows how – using a specific set of quite new methods – we can yet hope to understand aspects of the changes that happened in their (Late Modern) history and of the variation that accompanied them