Women, Reading, and Piety in Late Medieval England. By Mary C. Erler. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xii + 226; 12 illustrations with a frontispiece. $60.

This is an admirable book. It is well researched, well written, and well presented, and it represents a real advance in the ongoing reevaluation of women's reading and literacy in late medieval England. Some years ago, in a book entitled What Nuns Read (1995), I called for "a modicum of honest reassessment " (p. 79) on this question, and in the years following the publication of that book, much has been done to indicate that modicum might have been too conservative a word. Some studies have concentrated on localized areas (such as the work of Marilyn Oliva on nuns in the diocese of Norwich), some have been restricted to a single nunnery (such as Paul Lee's study of Dartford), some have concentrated on single manuscripts (an area in which Alexandra Barratt has made useful contributions), some have been more universal (such as the collections of essays edited by Lesley Smith and Jane Taylor), and some, alas, have been no more than what can only be called bandwagon books, profiting from the popularity of publications in women's studies to tell us little we did not already know.

David N. Bell
Memorial University of Newfoundland