During the dozen years from 1828 to 1840, around the time of the Great Reform Act, forty-five men served at different points on the Church of England's episcopal bench. Trevor Park introduces them in thematic categories, examining their education, preferment, patronage, their role as legislators in the House of Lords and as pastores pastorum in the dioceses, visitation charges and family life in the episcopal palace. The material on confirmations is particularly valuable, bearing comparison with Phillip Tovey's Anglican confirmation, 1662–1820 (London 2014), and there is a special focus on the early history of ordination training, one of Park's specialisms. He clearly has his personal favourites: Bishop Edward Stanley is praised as ‘a man I warm to’, whereas poor Bishop George Davys is dismissed as ‘another episcopal mediocrity’ (pp.354, 359). The style is generally even-handed, although sometimes the author's private theological judgements emerge unnecessarily – the traditional doctrine of suffering as divine visitation, frequently taught by these bishops, is belittled as a ‘bizarre belief’ (p.342). Overall, this survey aims to explode two popular myths about the late Hanoverian episcopate. First, it demonstrates that they were often diligent, scholarly, generous-hearted pastors, not always nepotistic and self-indulgent. Second, it shows that there were plenty of reforming bishops in the generation before Samuel Wilberforce; they were not all reactionary conservatives. This was proved two decades ago by Arthur Burns in his The diocesan revival (Oxford 1999), but this volume confirms it. Park, a septuagenarian, acknowledges that ‘age and infirmity’ have limited his ability to access manuscript material (p.8). Therefore he plunders nineteenth-century biographies for detail, supplemented by transcribed correspondence, with copious quotation. The result is a compendium rather than an analysis. The narrative is very familiar, but nevertheless provides a helpful introductory text to whet student appetites for further research.