In this, the introduction to The Language of Early English Dialect Literature, I make a case for reading dialect literature as an aesthetic object in its own right. After exploring the chief reasons why people in the twenty-first century do not, on the whole, read early English dialect literature (namely, the difficulties it poses), I suggest that its complexly creative approach to language is a central but overlooked part of the pleasure that it has historically offered readers. The chapter revises Shorrocks’s (Non-standard Dialect Literature and Popular Culture. In Speech Past and Present: Studies in English Dialectology in Memory of Ossi Ihalainen, eds. J. Klemola, M. Kyto and M. Rissanen, 285–411. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1996) definition of dialect literature and suggests in its place the following definition: texts written largely in non-standard English, one of whose primary aims is to show how people talk in particular places. It goes on to provide a brief overview of the period covered by the book and surveys existing research on the subject of dialect literature. The introduction concludes by summarising the chapters that follow.