Nicholas Love: The Mirror of the Blessed life of Jesus Christ. A Full Critical Edition by Michael G. Sargent. Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 2005. Pp. xviii + 596. $100.

In the early fifteenth century Nicholas Love (d. 1424) produced a Middle English translation of the pseudo-Bonaventuran Meditationes Vitae Christi which Love entitled: The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ. This work has received at the hand of Michael G. Sargent a sophisticated and excellent treatment. Sargent is well known for his life work on the manuscript history and context of the Mirror. Two earlier books by him offered a complete text of Love's work: in 1992 (Garland Publications) and in 2004 (Exeter Medieval texts). The major difference between this 2006 book and the earlier Garland publication is that the 1992 work offered the results of only a partial collation of the manuscripts. A more in-depth analysis of the manuscript tradition is evidenced in the 2004 Exeter publication, culminating in this present study that rightly lives up to the claim of being a "full critical edition" in terms of his analysis of the available manuscripts. All three presentations of Mirror over the past 14 years agree that the base manuscript of the original version of Love's work (Cambridge, University Library MS Add. 6578 and 6686) belonged to the Carthusian Charterhouse at Mount Grace and was written during Love's lifetime.

Lawrence F. Hundersmarck
Pace University