Published in 1510, the Aberdeen Breviary is Scotland's first full-scale printed book. It was the end result of an ambitious enterprise to compile for Scotland its own distinctive national hagiography. Taking its basic inspiration from the breviary of the Sarum rite, with its preponderance of lessons for English saints, the Aberdeen Breviary sought to establish readings for a full array of Scottish saints – ‘readings which hitherto’, its title page proclaimed, ‘were scattered diffusely in uncertainty’. Alan Macquarrie's rigorous yet accessible edition of those readings, accompanied by a full English translation and detailed historical notes, will doubtless serve to renew scholarly interest in the Breviary's curious collection of traditions, legends and miracle-stories. The high standard of editorial work makes one regret that this could not have been extended to the Breviary in its entirety, since the present volume extracts only the material relating – sometimes loosely – to Scotland. Yet even if one cannot get a direct sense of the book as a whole, the Scottish entries printed here undoubtedly provide the Breviary's historical interest. It can hardly be said that all its saints remain well known, for the Breviary drew as much upon the legends of obscure local saints as upon the well-known uitae of more famous individuals. For some of those local saints, in fact, the Aberdeen Breviary is now our only window onto their cult. There is much that remains to be said about them, and Macquarrie's reliable and informative edition provides the best possible starting-point for future work.