The clergyman and church historian Harald Weinacht prepared this translation and bilingual edition of Philipp Melanchthon's Life of Martin Luther as a gift to the congregation and pastorate of the Melanchthon Church in Bremen on the occasion of that church's fiftieth jubilee. Melanchthon wrote and saw the original Latin to press in June 1546, shortly after Luther's death, and a number of editions, some in German translation for a broader readership, followed. Of modern reprintings apart from Melanchthon's works in the Corpus Reformatorum there has been no total lack: Gerhard Weng's rendering into German is easily available (Melanchthon deutsch, ed. Michael Beyer and others, Leipzig 1997, i. 169–88). Melanchthon's brief summary was intended as a eulogy in classical style – Weinacht calls it a ‘humanistische Programmschrift’ – and it has thus never afforded historians a satisfying compendium of Luther's life. In light of half a millennium's scholarship, its exaggerations are manifest concerning such matters as Luther's startling brilliance as a schoolboy and his adult restraint when speaking or writing on topics with political implications. Nor may this biography be taken as an accurate rendering of the complex relationship between the older Reformer and the younger. This brief volume is nevertheless a pleasant gift for an esteemed former pastor to offer to the succeeding generations of Luther's and, in Bremen's case, also Melanchthon's latter-day followers. After the initial Latin and German texts themselves, Weinacht places a middle section of commentary on substantive questions, such as the year of Luther's birth; the role of Erasmus in advising Luther before the Diet of Worms and his distancing afterward; or the eulogist's use of the word ‘Catholic’. Another section is made up of selected letters and excerpted documents in their original languages, including Charles v's Edict of Worms of 8 May 1521, which bans Luther and his writings. Bibliography and index conclude this celebratory work.