In history, we are told, ‘pour savoir les choses, il faut savoir le detail’. The editors of the present volume cannot be faulted in this connexion. The special difficulties they faced are outmatched by an attention to detail as scrupulous as it is daunting. These difficulties included a main text which survives in four manuscripts whose chronological relation to one another is opaque, and other materials of uncertain status. The Miltons have delivered a critical text of Locke's unpublished Essay concerning toleration (1667) based upon, and registering variations between, all four manuscripts that is clearer than any reader could reasonably have hoped, together with complete transcriptions of other unpublished Lockian writings including ‘Queries on Scottish church government’ (1668), notes on Samuel Parker's Discourse of ecclesiastical politie (1669), the important ‘Excommunication’ (1674), A letter from a person of quality, to his friend in the country in which Locke had a hand (1675) and a paper on the selection of juries (1681) recently identified by the editors as Locke's work, plus assorted entries from commonplace books, items of dubious provenance and related material not by Locke. The textual introduction (pp. 162–263) is a model of editorial scholarship, and the general introduction (pp. 1–161) meticulous about matters of fact and illuminating about matters of style (for example pp. 49–52) if not always so convincing about conceptual content (for example p. 32). The quality of the texts and bibliographical descriptions alone ensures that the volume will quickly become authoritative; the assuredness and inimitable concision which distinguish its judgements recommend it still further. Witness, for instance, the following irresistible epitome of Parker: ‘an ambitious ecclesiastical careerist with deplorable controversial manners’ of whom ‘it is very easy to form an unfavourable opinion’ (p. 61). The latter could scarcely be said of this volume.