Almost as soon as it was published in 1996, Jacques Le Goff's study of St Louis (Louis ix in France) was hailed as a triumph. Scholars from either side of the Atlantic clamoured to review it, and when they did, their prose was suffused with superlatives, concern about the book's meandering structure notwithstanding. For this reason an English translation of Saint Louis is perhaps long overdue. Gareth Evan Gollrad's imposing and heavy (1·6 kg) translation is an accurate and lucid rendition of Le Goff's original work, complete with genealogical charts and maps, although unfortunately lacking the exquisite colour plates of the Gallimard edition. Influenced by the Annales School of history, of which Le Goff was an early exponent, Saint Louis is no mere biography, rather it is an exploration of the politics and society of thirteenth-century France, which shaped, and were shaped by, Louis ix, in life and in death. The book is divided into three parts. The first part provides a detailed narrative of Louis ix's life and reign. The second part looks at his character and rule in retrospect. Le Goff analyses the manuscript and record evidence for Louis's reign in an attempt to disentangle reality from hagiography, in order to answer the provocative question, ‘did saint Louis exist?’ Developing themes from parts i and ii, the final section of Le Goff's work offers a reflective critique of the utility and display of royal power in thirteenth-century France, as revealed by Louis ix's forty-three-year reign. In this concluding section, which includes discussions on the varied forms of royal speech and the king's appreciation of time, the reader is invited to consider ‘[whether] Saint Louis [was] a calculating king?’ For this new translation Anglophone readers are certainly in Goddard's debt, although one may wonder how many of them there will be. Those who are sufficiently interested in thirteenth-century France, and the reign Louis ix in particular, more likely than not read French. They are probably already well acquainted with Le Goff's masterpiece. It is perhaps a tad optimistic to think that a new English translation, published thirteen years after Le Goff's original, which is just shy of 1,000 pages and costs £75 ($123), will attract many new readers, although, of course, it should. In his translator's note, Gareth Evan Gollrad refers to Le Goff's Saint Louis as ‘living monument’. Considering the elegant complexity of Saint Louis, Gollrad's oxymoron is apt, but not well conceived. It poses the following response. Jacques Le Goff's work is not simply written in French, it is conceived in an intellectual tradition that is uniquely French. Monuments ‘live’ in as much as they educate, challenge, inspire and provoke, but monuments are rarely adaptable. They tolerate little change and rarely need it. Consequently, I am left wondering whether the money and effort, as faultless as it is, that went into this new edition is really justified. As is so often the case, time will tell.