Derek Albert Pearsall (1931–2021) was an English medievalist and Chaucerian who wrote and published widely on Chaucer, Langland, Gower, manuscript studies, and medieval history and culture.
[2][3] In 1998 he delivered the British Academy's Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture.
[4] Pearsall was born in Birmingham to parents Elsie (née Rawlins) and Joseph, a shop fitter toolmaker, and attended King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys.
[3] In 1952 in King's Lynn, Pearsall married Rosemary Elvidge (d. 2004), whom he had met as a student.
[5] The couple considered York, where they returned to upon retirement and had a permanent house in Clifton, to be their home.