This work is not about the earliest books of the medieval cathedral priory (or Christ Church) at Canterbury, which are now widely scattered in libraries in Britain and elsewhere, but a catalogue of four manuscripts and fragments of thirty-eight others (ten of which are liturgical and therefore from types of books that have had a poor survival rate), datable to before 1200 that are now at the cathedral. Fifteen items, including three of the manuscripts, were possibly or certainly owned by one of the Canterbury houses. Not included in the work is a handful of post-Conquest cathedral priory archival books datable to before 1200, some fragmentary, that are as interesting as those that are. (These have had little attention paid to their physical features since some were described by William Urry in 1967.) The introduction has an interim account of the ‘book culture’ to 1200 of the two principal Canterbury houses, drawing in the evidence of some of the catalogued items, evidence concerning the pre- and post-Dissolution reuse of the items, many as covers for archival books, and the dispersal of the Canterbury libraries. The catalogue descriptions follow a common pattern (although some of the terminology is idiosyncratic), with the texts described at great length, often with collations against selected manuscripts and/or printed editions. These are followed by accounts of scribe(s) and script, decoration, origin/provenance and, finally, a commentary. The introduction and catalogue are a mixture of the informative and commonplace, written throughout in the author's characteristic cheerful prolix style, with the commentaries mostly concerned with biographies of the authors and their work(s), including their transmission in England, ‘composed with the interests of a broad audience in mind’. (There are no commentaries for all but one of the liturgical books and two canon law collections, the kind of works that such an audience would need help in understanding.) One page (sometimes more) of each item is reproduced in colour, but this means that for some the reduction is so great that the character and the details of their script are difficult to see. However, items nos 3 and 17, and nos 27 and 28 can be linked together, but although this is visible in the reproductions the descriptions do not draw attention to the links, and one unlocalised fragment, no. 31, appears to be by a Christ Church scribe who wrote at least six charters and two manuscripts for the priory. The fragments of an important multi-volume Christ Church Passional, no. 22, are dated ‘s. xii¹’ at the head of the catalogue entry, but to the 1120s in the introduction although it has scribal evidence to show it may have been made ten or fifteen years earlier. It is always difficult to succeed with works intended for scholarly and broad audiences, and this one is no exception. However, catalogues in any form are always useful for scholars and therefore this one must be welcomed, but it is presumably for a wider appeal that this book was designed with care and well printed on good paper.