This volume, edited by Julian Luxford, contains nine essays on the history, architecture, and texts of London's Carthusian houses: Sheen and the London Charterhouse at Smithfield, contextualizing these houses in their Carthusian milieu, but also considering their strong links to the contemporary Bridgettine house Syon Abbey, located near Sheen. While Sheen features throughout the book, it is mainly focused on the London Charterhouse, with a number of contributions focusing specifically on this site. The Carthusians followed their rule strictly and garnered considerable attention during Henry VIII's campaign for their reluctance to accept the supremacy, resulting in several deaths, including sixteen members of the London Charterhouse.

The first section of the book deals with the physical evidence for the Carthusians, with Julian Luxford exploring the architecture of the London Charterhouse. Unusually for this order, this was an urban house. It accommodated a community of monks in individual cells, arranged around the Great Cloister, in addition to a supporting cast of lay brothers living around the Little Cloister. Luxford explores the contrasting architecture of the two groups, noting that the latter have been the subject of far less scholarly attention than the monks, and that they were mainly accommodated in lean-to wooden buildings, in contrast to the monks’ two-story free-standing cells. Glyn Coppack offers a detailed treatment of the London Charterhouse's water system and how this influenced arrangements at other houses. He ably deals with the challenges inherent in considering medieval monastic water supplies, including removal of lead pipes during the Dissolution and the lack of consideration of this topic in early excavations.

The Carthusians spent much of their days alone in their cells and devoted themselves to the copying of manuscripts. Marlene Villalobos Hennessy deals with British Library MS Egerton 1821, a Latin devotional miscellany on vellum which includes four hand-colored woodcuts. The manuscript is believed to have been produced in London or Sheen Charterhouse, and John Whetham, a monk of the London Charterhouse, is identified as its scribe. It is not known whether he produced the accompanying images. One image is black and depicts blood spatters and is “radically non-representational,” indicating the use of abstraction to communicate a complex religious concept (88). In this case, the author proposes that the text entitled “the Lillies of the Virgin,” which also features in this manuscript, provides clues as to why this page is so heavily worn, suggesting a devotional practice involving rubbing the pages of a book in order to delete sins. The following two chapters by Michael G. Sargent and Vincent Gillespie consider the transmission of texts by the English Carthusians with the former carefully plotting the transmission of the writings of Walter Hilton and Nicholas Love. Gillespie lauds Sargent's long-standing work in this area but critiques the work of some subsequent authors who, he argues, have been over-enthusiastic in their attribution of Carthusian involvement in text transmission. He addresses the perception of the order as a “Secret Santa, magically producing texts and disseminating them around expectant lay readers” (153).

The book's third and final section addresses the slow and painful decline of the Carthusians in London. Ann M. Hutchinson considers the fate of the English Carthusians and Bridgettines, with a particular focus on Syon Abbey. The latter were a late medieval order, established by St. Birgitta of Sweden and granted papal approval in 1378. St. Birgitta was drawn to the Carthusians as an example of good monastic practice; they were the only order who escaped criticism in her writings. Hutchinson explores the devotional practices shared by the two orders, as well as the martyrdom of members of both. Diarmaid MacCulloch presents a compelling account of the process of suppressing the London Charterhouse, with numerous attempts being made to convert the community through various representatives of the Crown. In May 1537, twenty monks agreed to accept the supremacy, while ten refused. MacCulloch traces the fates of those who refused, half of whom were dead within two months. He also provides interesting insights into those who accepted the supremacy and their reasons. He notes that, in their attempts to preserve the community for the future, they maintained the charterhouse's gardens and orchards, rather than engaging in the kind of asset-stripping that was taking place in friaries elsewhere in England at this time. Peter Cunich's chapter picks up the theme of the supremacy, focusing on the case of Maurice Chauncy, who after two years’ resistance and much deliberation eventually agreed to subscribe to the oath of supremacy, following a conversation with the confessor general of Syon Abbey. Cunich explores Chauncy's subsequent life, mainly in Bruges as prior of Sheen Anglorum, with a brief return to England during the reign of Mary I. Chauncy wrote a number of accounts of the London Charterhouse community, before and after the suppression, and Cunich chronicles the guilt he felt at having let down his martyred confrères. James P. Carley investigates the history of Charterhouse Square in London after the Dissolution. Particular attention is devoted to John Leland, a royal chaplain who compiled detailed accounts of the contents of many monastic libraries, sometimes the only surviving documentation for these that survive. Also resident in the square (formerly known as the Yard) was Catherine Parr, prior to her marriage to Henry VIII in 1547.

Overall, the book is beautifully produced and includes twenty-three color plates which are inserted near its beginning. While some of these are signposted in the text, it would have been useful to continue this practice throughout the volume to alert readers to their presence, where relevant. The book presents a diverse and engaging set of essays, placing the focus on a religious order whose members, by the nature of their vocation, were inconspicuous throughout much of their lives until their quiet resistance brought the Crown's wrath upon them.