Readers may discover much of value in this new biography of St Nicholas – but not, perhaps, for the reasons that the author intended. For Adam English has sought to unearth the ‘true life and trials’ of the sainted bishop of Myra, to strip away the various hagiographical accretions and so to reveal the historical personage that lies beneath. The problem, alas, is that when one does strip away those hagiographical accretions, there is almost nothing left. The very existence of a fourth-century bishop of Myra called Nicholas remains in some degree of doubt, let alone his attendance at the Council of Nicaea, or his destruction of the local temple of Artemis. Adam English, to his credit, squeezes as much as he can from the meagre evidential scraps on offer, but it still leaves him some way short of a substantial monograph. So, to fill the gaps, we are given plenty of contextual colour – descriptions of Roman culture, church worship, Christian persecutions, pagan practices and so on. These elements are nicely organised and written with verve – they turn the book, in fact, into a rather helpful little introduction to fourth-century life. But the lure of the legendary proves too much for English, and great swathes of the volume are devoted to reproducing (largely uncritically) all the famous tales of St Nicholas's piety and zeal – his generosity towards needy maidens, his swashbuckling rescue of falsely-imprisoned soldiers, and his bestowal of a hefty punch upon Arius’ chin at the Council of Nicaea. English also delineates the subsequent growth of the cult of the saint, and helpfully draws attention to the diverse ways in which the image of St Nicholas has been repeatedly remoulded according to the whims of later historical communities – not least in his modern guise as a rotund dispenser of festive gifts. Indeed, the author himself writes with something of a contemporary agenda in mind, consistently holding out St Nicholas to the reader as a great model of courage and generosity. This is certainly not an unworthy agenda to have, but it does mean that English ends up perpetuating precisely the kind of hagiographical treatment that he had sought to transcend.