As a contribution to the study of Jerome, Andrew Cain's book is a lively, readable, and valuable addition to a well-established field. As a contribution to the historical study of epistolography it is a challenging and innovative work in an area of relative critical neglect. * Julian Haseldine, Journal of Medieval Latin * a very fine study that is jam-packed with new and significant insights...An excellent book! * Neil Adkin. The Journal of Theological Studies * He was unlikely kind of saint but, goodness, he wrote great letters. Ancient rhetoric had three objectives: to instruct. to entertain and to persuade. Jerome was master of them all, so please read Cain's excellent book and then have a look at the letters themselves. * Jonathan Wright, Catholic Herald * Epistolography is in vogue, and this engagingly written book shares in the revisionist spirit of recent scholarship on ancient letters ... This was a book worth writing, and is a book worth reading. * J. H. D. Scourfield, Journal of Roman Studies * The Jerome that emerges from this book is a more sympathetic (and less shrill) scholar and ecclesiastical operator than that of traditional scholarship. Cain's meticulous and sensitive analysis of the context for and dynamic of Jerome's letters builds on the scholarship of Conybeare and Trout on Paulinus of Nola's epistolography, and his exploration of some of the more obscure corners of Jerome's correspondence is particularly welcome. * Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe, Journal of Ecclesiastical History *
