Given Pliny's thoughts on recovering previous writings and gathering them for publication (Ep. 1.2), he would undoubtedly be pleased to learn that his Epistles have warranted an Oxford Readings. (It is worth noting that his Panegyricus has already received attention in this series: R. Rees [ed.], Latin Panegyric [2012].) The present volume is a collection of twenty essays: seventeen of which have appeared in print previously; three new (one a translation of an article previously in German, one extensively rewritten from two previous articles, and G. and W.’s introduction). Anglophone scholarship of the last 60-odd years dominates (with one exception, albeit now translated), reflecting (as per G. and W.) article-production on the Epistles more generally. The volume comprises an introduction (‘Readings and Readers of Pliny's Epistles’) and four sections: ‘Pliny in History’ (four reprints); ‘Reading Epistles 1–9’ (ten reprints, one new translation); ‘Epistles 10: a Case Apart?’ (two reprints); and ‘Pliny's Afterlife’ (one rewrite, one reprint) – as well as a complete reference list for all articles, an index of passages discussed and a general index.

The introduction is as detailed as it is welcome, providing an extensive overview of Plinian textual history, translation and scholarship. For any scholar or reader new to the Younger Pliny, I can think of no better introduction than this. Eminently readable and concise, G. and W. in 50 pages could bring the most novice Plinian up to speed. The introduction may also prove helpful in directing the research angles for those unfamiliar with the wide-ranging scholarship on Pliny and his letters. The following essays situate Pliny (man, senator and author) in his contemporary milieu. The first section commences with A.R. Birley's introductory focus on ‘Pliny's Family, Pliny's Career’ (excerpted from his excellent Onomasticon [2000]), which gives the current position on the biographical details of the senator, as well as previous scholarly positions and the extent of the evidential basis for our understanding. The selection proceeds through R. Syme's ‘Pliny's Less Successful Friends’ (1960), an article highly demonstrative of a remarkable ability to collate information and plausibly reconstruct historical and biographical details, to R. Duncan-Jones’ ‘The Finances of a Senator’ (1982). Duncan-Jones’s article, previously part of his work on the Roman economy, highlights Pliny's Epistles as a unique source of information on senatorial wealth and expenditure, and seeks to assess how far Pliny is a typical (or atypical) example of his class. Finally, E. Champlin explores Pliny's other spatial connections outside of the area coined ‘Pliny country’ around Comum (‘Pliny's Other Country’ [2001], with an addendum for the present volume).

Themes rather than a focus on individual books form the basis for the second section: H.W. Traub's article, ‘Pliny's Treatment of History in Epistolary Form’ (1955), commences discussion on Books 1–9, an analysis as informative on Pliny as it is on his contemporaries. Textual analysis sheds light on Pliny's method of collation and publication, with a rebuttal of Mommsen's thesis of chronological production (‘The Chronology and Arrangement of Pliny's Letters’, an abridged version of C.E. Murgia, ‘Pliny's Letters and the Dialogus’ [1985], included here with a correction by the author). The collection moves from the construction of the text to Pliny's relationship with, and presentation of, women – in particular his wife Calpurnia (J.-A. Shelton, ‘Pliny the Younger, and the Ideal Wife’ [1990]). The first of two discussions on Pliny's (literary) relationship with his encyclopaedic uncle – U. Eco's ‘A Portrait of the Elder as a Young Pliny’ (1990) – looks at the role of the model reader in Pliny's partisan account of the Elder Pliny's fatal final investigations. A review article follows – B. Bergmann's ‘Visualizing Pliny's Villas’ (1995) – which exposes the problems of reconstructing Pliny's homes from what he tells his audience. Literary appropriation and imitation now enters: A.M. Riggsby, ‘Self and Community in the Younger Pliny’ (1998), looks at Pliny's Ciceronian influence, Pliny's letters and Quintilian, to produce a portrait of a conservative orator and senator who is deeply concerned with how he is perceived by his peers. The discussion of appropriation and imitation continues with M. Roller's ‘Pliny's Catullus’ (1998) – a study in Pliny's (lost) poetry gleaned from references in his letters. The volume then moves from themes to individuals: the presentation and actions (as reported by Pliny) of the senatorial delator Regulus (S.E. Hoffer, ‘Models of Senators and Emperors: Regulus, the Bad Senator’ [1999]). The lucid translation of P. Schenk (‘Forms of Intertextuality in the Epistles of Pliny the Younger’ [1999]) is undoubtedly one of the gems of the volume, with its perceptive consideration of the intertext's import. M. Griffin's ‘Pliny and Tacitus’ (1999) is as much a discussion on the academic and personal relations between Syme (the Tacitean) and Sherwin-White (the Plinian) as it is between the ancient authors themselves. The section ends with a glorious Hendersonic romp which returns us to Pliny on (Elder) Pliny (J. Henderson, ‘Knowing Someone Through Their Books: Pliny on Uncle Pliny’ [2002]).

The penultimate section, on Book 10, comprises two articles: F. Millar's ‘Trajan: Government by Correspondence’ (2004) and G. Woolf's ‘Pliny's Province’ (2006). The former is a consideration of the technicalities of the imperial post (in both senses), with an excellent tabulation of the letters; the latter casts doubt on the traditional separation of Book 10 from 1–9, as well as considering how Pliny chooses to present his province to his literary audience.

The last section is decidedly brief. A. Cameron has rewritten and revised his two articles on Pliny's literary afterlife in antiquity and his usage by Tertullian and Jerome, amongst others (‘The Fate of Pliny's Letters in the Late Empire’ [1965] and ‘Pliny's Letters in the Later Empire: an Addendum’ [1967]). With L.D. Reynolds’s history of the text's transmission from antiquity to the age of print (‘The Transmission of Pliny's Epistles’ [1983]), the volume is brought to a close.

Any compendium is a matter of scholarly choice, and no selection will ever please all readers. As G. and W. note, the digitisation of academic scholarship makes the production of an Oxford Readings a fraught task; the editors assert selection here has been guided predominantly by inaccessibility. Some questions as to selection undoubtedly exist. Syme's article is both readily accessible in its original publication – Historia – through the digital repository JSTOR, as well as in the still in-print Roman Papers; its presence throws light on a most notable absence. Sherwin-White, whose pre-eminence in Plinian studies merits the dedication of this volume, fails to have any writing gain entry. From a personal perspective, an article from I. Marchesi on Plinian intertext would have paired very well with Schenk's contribution. An act of academic modesty means that the editors’ own work has disappointingly been excluded entry. (Although OUP already has a selection of contemporary scholarship, which includes W. and G., in Marchesi [ed.], Pliny the Book-Maker [2015]). It is a shame that the progressive attitude towards the Epistles’ unity as a ten-book collection in G. and W.’s introduction is not reflected in the conservative separation of 10 from 1–9 within the volume itself. Likewise, the abridgement of Murgia is peculiar (36 pages [pp. 171–206] reduced to twelve [pp. 191–202]), especially given that there are longer articles included here. A few typographical errors have crept in; for instance, ‘treason-trials’ in Traub's original article (1955, p. 216) has become ‘treason-trails’ here (p. 127). These quibbles aside, this is an engaging collection of scholarship on Pliny and his Epistles, which – as the editors avowedly hope – should serve as a departure point for future enquiries and researches.