This is a fascinating collection of diverse material written within or about the Sinai peninsula between the fifth and eighth centuries c.e. Readers will discover a ‘comprehensive dossier illustrating the ideals and dangers associated with life on a late Roman frontier’ (p. 1). ‘Ideals and dangers’ indeed: these are stories in which bonds of affection and loyalty are confronted by hostile terrors from beyond the borders of one's world, stories pervaded by menace and risk, stories in which death is a constant and central theme.

The book opens with a valuable essay in five parts that establishes the broader historical context of the Sinai Peninsula in late antiquity as well as the literary and hagiographical background of the Sinai Martyr tradition. The texts, most of which have been translated into English for the first time, are divided into three groups. The heart of the volume is made up by the ‘Major Sinai Narratives’: Pseudo-Nilus' Narrations (appearing alongside a ninth-century excerpt from a Syriac translation of the same text and Nilus of Ancyra's Letter to Heliodorus), Ammonius' Report Concerning the Slaughter of the Monks of Sinai and Rhaithou, and selections from Anastasius of Sinai's Tales of the Sinai Fathers and Edifying Tales. The translations are preceded by thorough introductions to the texts and current scholarly issues, while more technical questions of geographical, historical, hagiographical and philological interest are followed up in the commentaries. These narratives are followed by two appendices. The first, ‘Sinai Pilgrimage Accounts and Travel Documents’, brings together material from Ephraem the Syrian (Hymns 19 and 20), the travel diaries of Egeria and Piacenza Pilgrim, Theodoret of Cyr's Religious History, the letters of Emperor Marcian, Jacob of Serug and Gregory the Great, the Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes, and even papyri discovered in the Negev during the last century. The final collection of documents concerns the construction (and destruction) of ‘Sinai Defences’, and comprises material from Procopius' On Buildings, the Annals of Eutychius of Alexandria and the Chronography of Theophanes the Confessor.

The book is eminently suited to the general reader disposed to enjoy ‘exciting stories set in a remote frontier world’ (p. vii), while those with a more professional interest will appreciate the thorough bibliography, the several maps and plans and the meticulous index. A wonderful addition to a wonderful series.