Really the only difficult thing about Piers Plowman is finding a good translation that is readable and hasn’t lost the original context.

I recommend that anyone trying to read it, go out and find following version:

ISBN: 9780393960112

Title: Piers Plowman: An Alliterative Verse Translation

Author: William Langland

Translator: E. Talbot Donaldson

Edited & Annotated: Elizabeth D. Kirk & Judith H. Anderson

I spent a lot of time looking through options for reading Piers Plowman, and this version is highly readable, annotated extremely well, and doesn’t seem to mess up any of the context.

Sidenote: The translator also has a pretty good Beowulf Translation, which I have also picked up and started reading.