While there has been a significant resurgence of scholarly interest in the Epistulae of Pliny the Younger in the last 20 years, the renaissance has not included any comprehensive commentary on the letters or any portion thereof in any language. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to remark that the dearth of commentary on Pliny is centuries old and has been a great impediment not only to Plinian scholars but also to students, whose professors have had so little choice of supporting material that the letters have been read only piecemeal, if at all. A.N. Sherwin White's monumental work (The Letters of Pliny: a Historical and Social Commentary [1966]) remains unsurpassed in its approach (though occasionally corrected), but it has tended to encourage the mining of individual letters from Pliny's corpus as cultural fodder, certainly a fruitful exercise, yet one that discourages reading the letters as literature and that almost entirely obscures the author's artistry.

With his consideration of Book 2 of the Epistulae, W. sets an extraordinarily high standard for what will hopefully become a cascade of commentaries on Pliny's work. W.'s stated aim (p. vii; p. 41) is to offer a literary study of Pliny's letters, something that simply cannot be done with an anthology, a form that is, in any case, better suited to the intermediate reader – clearly not W.'s audience. Anyone who needs extensive grammatical support will be disappointed with this volume, which is pitched for the highly advanced or expert reader. W. focuses instead on style, diction, allusion and particularly arrangement. This study is exhaustive, a tour de force with more than 200 pages of commentary on a scant 20 pages of Latin.

The text begins with an extensive and invaluable introduction. W. frames the resurgence of scholarly interest in the letters – the trend toward eclectic anthology vs consideration of whole books or the entire corpus – and touches on Pliny's literary influences (a preview of much of what is to come), as well as the oft-trodden issues of authenticity and audience. He then briefly examines Pliny's life, career and self-presentation, countering the oft-expressed assessment of Pliny as an ‘intellectual lightweight’ (p. 10) with an invitation for the reader to look past the author's self-promotion to Pliny's inner world – his studia – a world that W. will explore in great depth in his commentary. W. proceeds to discuss the nature of a ‘book’ of epistles, proposing for Book 2 various frames, pairs, patterns and resonances within the book as a whole or in halves and then endorsing a narrative reading of its letters, an approach through which he finds Pliny's dissatisfaction with his world as the culminating impression. He goes on to examine the nine-book collection in similar terms, setting Books 1 and 2 as a pair that subsequent books reframe and reflect, thus creating a sense both of each book's autonomy and of corporate unity among all nine books.

In the next section of the introduction, W. instructs his reader on the major stylistic elements of Pliny's prose, defining technical terms he will use in his commentary and providing illustrative excerpts from the letters. There follows a delightfully surprising discussion of prose rhythm – sure evidence of W.'s passion for examining Plinian style. While many readers will jump past this section, it may be the most intriguing part of the text for those interested in Pliny as literary artist. W. concludes that an examination of prose rhythm in Pliny reveals his ‘extreme stylisation’ (p. 32). Such a declaration may beg the question of intentionality, but there is no doubt that Pliny's preference for the same rhythms and rhetorical strategies in both his letters and his oratory (p. 31) testifies to the literary nature of the Epistulae. Intentionality is also an issue with W.'s treatment of intertextuality in Pliny – about which certainty depends upon direct reference – particularly with regard to Tacitus. As W. rightly points out, their texts communicate, but uncertain dating of their works makes sorting out allusion impossible (p. 34). The introduction also includes brief consideration of Pliny's Nachleben and a summary of the manuscript tradition that is most helpful in its explanation regarding indexes and letter-headings, which tend both to confuse and tantalise the reader attempting to identify Pliny's addressees.

While the introduction sets the stage, the star of this text is W.'s commentary. Each letter receives an introduction that includes: (1) a brief synopsis of its contents; (2) information about the addressee; (3) a discussion (lengthy where warranted) of the persons mentioned, the historical context where pertinent, the literary context, topoi employed, and Pliny's particular pose/persona as well as his models or foils; (4) observations on the structure of the letter and its trajectory, particular points of style and epistolarity, its various themes and characteristics, allusion and/or singularity; (5) consideration of its placement in the book as well as among its predecessors and successors in the corpus, with attention to both addressee and subject matter and the provision of essential context that points the reader to other letters beyond Book 2 (this is immensely useful and fruitful, as Sherwin White's catalogue [pp. 42–5] is of limited value).

As to W.'s analysis of the text itself, his approach is to cite a substantial chunk and to offer an immediate English translation. For each section, there follows an in-depth explanation of style and explication of cultural context, significance and influence, and rather extensive reference to the works of Pliny's predecessors and contemporaries. W.'s focus is just what he has promised – a literary examination of this book of letters. What he presumes is a reader with unshakeable command of syntax and lexicon, although he does offer numerous references to the OLD to support his reading of the text. There is little grammatical assistance even in sticky spots, unless W. sees the opportunity to embed Pliny's prose within its literary tradition. Indeed, his commitment to this enterprise is evidenced by his occasionally expansive listing of literary exempla for even simple grammatical features or word use, for example the accusative of exclamation (p. 148). There is no excuse for ignorance on the part of the reader, as W. provides thorough references to modern scholarship on any number of literary, historical or cultural topics. In so doing he has created a remarkable resource for those wishing to explore further Pliny's milieu.

All these elements combine to create an exceptional commentary, one that more than meets the goals that W. has set for it. There is little cause for complaint, but W. has made some puzzling choices, the most prominent of which is his decision to include what amounts to a segmented translation of virtually the entire text of every letter. With a commentary that assumes the reader's sophisticated knowledge of Latin and its literature, this seems an odd approach, unnecessary for the intended audience. Perhaps W. means for the translations to serve moderately advanced students, but if so the paucity of grammatical assistance will tend to compel such students to rely on his translations rather than their own reading of the text, making the commentary far less than ideal for their understanding of the Latin itself and the growth of their reading skills. Furthermore, the less able reader could be turned off by the sheer volume of information and the occasional long textual excursus, for example abiit vs abit (p. 73) or singulae sed alternis pauciores (p. 243), which are clearly meant for the expert alone.

Such issues are mere quibbles, however, in light of the overall exceptional quality of W.'s commentary, which is both meticulous and far-reaching. His literary assessment of Pliny is unmatched in its scope and quality. One can only hope that he will soon apply these same nuanced skills to the rest of the corpus, providing a sorely needed resource for a new generation of Plinian scholars.