F.'s latest contribution to scholarship on the Metamorphoses is conceived as a sequel to his earlier book Madness Unchained: a Reading of Virgil's Aeneid. The book's aim is to provide an introduction to students of the poem at any level – from high school students, undergraduates, postgraduates through to academics. His main argument running throughout the book is that ‘Ovid primarily considered himself a successor to Virgil and that the Metamorphoses is principally a response to the Aeneid’ (p. xviii). In this context, he provides a very detailed account of the intertextuality between the two texts. The book is structured into fifteen chapters, each corresponding to a chapter in the Metamorphoses, and F.'s narrative follows exactly that of Ovid's as he discusses each tale as it appears in the poem. It is a good introductory book: indeed, perhaps high school students and undergraduates would find it most useful in that it considers the poem as a whole, offering a clear and easy to follow narrative and a good introduction to all of the stories in the poem. However, F.'s decision to structure his book in such a way does lend itself to being overly descriptive rather than analytical.

F. states early on that he does not engage with ‘unfortunate trends’ in critically theoretical scholarship, asserting that his students assure him that ‘it is very boring indeed to learn that a poem is, after all, about writing poems and other such meta-considerations’ (p. xvii). This is innovative in its own way, since much of recent Ovidian scholarship has tended to be largely concerned with precisely these kinds of approaches. Tackling the text, then, in an unusual manner F. attributes a seriousness to Ovid's epic and takes the view that the poet's main concerns are philosophical rather than political (p. xxii). He does not believe that the Metamorphoses is anti-Augustan or critical and subversive of the Augustan regime. This is again an aspect of the book which may surprise some readers of an Augustan epic which not only deals with the rise and fall of empires, but also of Rome and Augustus himself in Book 15.

F.'s traditional approach (which focusses mainly on the Metamorphoses' intertextual relationship with the Aeneid) is clearly expressed and thoroughly explored in detail. However, it is perhaps unfortunate that the seriousness with which F. (quite rightly) approaches Ovid does not easily allow for the appreciation and exploration of Ovidian irony and humour, which is a core part of Ovid's poetic mastery. F. acknowledges in Chapter 7 that there are moments of comedy but that the epic is a serious one before all else, stating that Ovid ‘is concerned with the weightiest of philosophical and theological problems, and he offers serious commentary on the most haunting of questions’ (p. 236). Yet I feel there is something lost in the appreciation and interpretation of Ovid here in that the incorporation of his irony and wit into a reading does not necessarily mean one is not treating Ovid seriously. It is perhaps Chapter 15 that suffers the most from this and from F.'s view that Ovid does not engage with the political, as this is the book in which Ovid most directly addresses Augustan political ideology. As Williams has argued (quite correctly), trying to read either a ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ Augustan stance in Ovid's poetry is reductive since ‘he is surely ambiguously both and completely neither’ (G. Williams, Banished Voices [1994], pp. 155). There is much in Ovid's Book 15 that can be read as either and both ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ Augustan, and negotiation between the two positions is important to a full appreciation of it, although this does not come out clearly in F.'s chapter. For example, there is no engagement with the stress on the rise and fall of empires, the veiled horns of Cipus, the problematic exaggerated praise of Julius Caesar and the important displacement of the last metamorphosis of Augustus on to Ovid himself – a celebration of Augustan triumph or biting satire? Or is it perhaps the negotiation between the two that is part of the sophistication of Ovid's poetry? F.'s commentary says nothing on this.

F.'s focus on the Metamorphoses' intertextual relationship with the Aeneid provides the reader with an excellent and comprehensive discussion of the dialogue between Ovid and his most recent epic predecessor. In many places his Virgilian focus is particularly productive. For example, Chapter 11 provides a detailed and thought-provoking analysis of the intertextual relationship between Ovid's Somnus and Virgil's Somnus: F. notes the connection of Morpheus' name to the theme of metamorphoses and the ideas of truth and falsehood in dreams and visions which emanate from the end of Book 6 of the Aeneid. However, this dominant emphasis does at times eclipse many of the other texts with which Ovid engages. For example, there is not much focus in F.'s Chapter 3 upon the ‘absent-presence’ of the Sophoclean Oedipus and Euripidean intertext to Ovid's Book 3. F. discusses the theme of falsehood, but does not address the Oedipal theme of blindness and sight, which is a significant motif running throughout Book 3.

The title of the book, Madness Transformed, highlights what F. contends forms the basis of the entirety of Ovid's universe. He argues that the madness that unifies the Aeneid is re-examined and transformed by Ovid and ‘is not a unifying theme per se the way it was in the Aeneid but its presence permeates the epic’ (p. xx). However, this theme does not quite play out clearly: although there are many references to the Aeneid, there are not many references to madness or how this motif has been specifically received in Ovid's Metamorphoses.

F.'s book has real merit as an introductory work to Ovid's wide-ranging Augustan epic. His detailed knowledge of the Aeneid allows for pertinent explorations of an extensive range of Ovid's Virgilian allusions in the poem, and he has surely succeeded in this and his aim to provide a basic and useful book for students of Ovid. However, such a strong focus on the intertextual relationship with the Aeneid inevitably leads to the neglect of some of the other important and, indeed, defining aspects of Ovid's epic (its irony, wit, narrative and engagement with Augustan politics), thereby unavoidably reducing its appeal and usefulness for many readers.