The seventh- or eighth-century Greek Life of Basil the Great, bishop of Caesarea (370–9), was translated into Latin by Euphemius in the ninth century. A text of the Latin Life of St Basil was incorporated into a legendary which would appear to have originated in northern France, possibly in the archdiocese of Rheims, in the late ninth century; and, sooner or later, a copy of this legendary was brought to England, providing the basis for Ælfric's Lives of the saints. Ælfric, monk of the Old Minster, Winchester, then mass-priest at Cerne, and latterly abbot of Eynsham, is all but synonymous with the monastic reform movement which contributed so much to the vitality of the Anglo-Saxon Church in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. At Cerne, in the 990s, he produced his two series of Catholic homilies, dedicated to Sigeric, archbishop of Canterbury, and his Lives of the saints, inscribed to Æthelweard, ealdorman of the western provinces, and to Æthelweard's son Æthelmær, founder of Eynsham, and himself a prominent thegn at the court of King Æthelred the Unready. Gabriella Corona's main concern is with the ‘reception’ of Basil in Anglo-Saxon England: to bring together what is known of the cult; to compare Ælfric's treatment of a passage from the Life of St Basil, in one of his homilies, with his treatment of the work in his Lives of the saints; and to present a modern edition of Ælfric's Life of St Basil with facing translation and detailed commentary. It is shown to be a subject with many unexpected dimensions, so the book is full of good things. An edition of the ninth-century Latin Life of St Basil, drawing in part on fragments of a manuscript, written in Anglo-Saxon square minuscule, which had been used in the fifteenth century for stiffening the binding of a cartulary of Exeter Cathedral, is provided as an appendix (pp. 223–47); and one only regrets that we are not given a fuller account, in this context, of this most interesting fragment, and of the basis upon which it is supposed to have been written, at Exeter, in the early tenth century. Following the bold practice adopted by Professor Lapidge for Ælfric's Life of St Swithun, Corona reconstructs the text in accordance with Ælfric's normal orthography, eschewing the idiosyncratic spellings in the principal surviving manuscript of the Lives of the saints (BL, ms Cotton Julius E. vii). More problematic, however, is her attempt to find a contemporary political context for Ælfric's treatment of the Life of St Basil. She fastens on some modifications which Ælfric made to the text in his treatment of the emperors Julian and Valens, and suggests that these may have reflected his anxieties ‘about contemporary politics and ill-advised kingship’ (pp. 84–5), adding that ‘the court was of little help in solving the difficult issues stemming from the increasing numbers of non-Christian settlers and from their contacts with their English neighbours’ (pp. 209–10), and citing ‘persecution to Christian institutions’ as further evidence of malaise (p. 222). It is right and proper that Ælfric should not be regarded as one insulated from the outside world, within monastic walls, and indeed that like Wulfstan of York he should be seen as one who responded to contemporary political developments. Yet he was writing for patrons who were deeply embedded in the ‘pro-monastic’ political establishment of the day. More striking, therefore, is Ælfric's addition of a short passage comparing the Rule of St Basil with the Rule of St Benedict (pp. 45–6, 91–2, 199); and it is enough to imagine that in this way the likes of Æthelweard and Æthelmær would have learnt more about the significance of St Basil the Great.