Romance and the Gentry in Late Medieval England sheds new light on Middle English romance, the most popular genre of secular literature in late medieval England. Romances are the predecessors to modern science fiction and Westerns: like these genres, they are often thought of as representative of the popular culture of their day. This book, however, offers a different perspective on the genre of medieval English romance, showing that, in fact, such texts appealed primarily to the gentry, England's elite landowners who lacked titles of nobility. To make this case, Romance and the Gentry in Late Medieval England examines surviving manuscripts, surveys recent work by historians on the gentry, and provides analyses of the literary texts, all of which, together, shows this genre speaking to this social class.