Peter Abelard is a figure about whom judgements are quickly made, often based on a hasty reading of his Historia calamitatum. The stock phrase is that he was arrogant and dismissive of his teachers. In this volume, Ruys offers an Abelard who is much less well known, namely a poet, committed to writing a long didactic poem for his son, Astralabe, and a series of poetic Laments for Heloise. In these compositions, all written in the mid-1130s (in the assessment of Ruys, persuasively argued), we find a much more personal series of reflections, of remarkable originality, but all shaped by experience. Abelard's Carmen ad Astralabium, of which Ruys provides a critical edition, translation and commentary, is particularly little known, even though it was one of Abelard's most popular compositions, judging by its diffusion in manuscripts. The poem has also suffered from unnecessarily harsh criticism about its supposedly disorganised character. Not the least of Ruys's achievements is to demonstrate that the Carmen, in its first, longest version (of which she argues that two separate shorter versions were made), does in fact have a sophisticated structure, that follows through many distinctively Abelardian themes. Central to her argument is that its composition marks a new awareness of familial responsibility that came about in the 1130s, after he resumed contact with Heloise. Central concerns in the Carmen are with the avoidance of verbosity, preference for planities in style, and insistence on the priority of matching external words with inner intention. Abelard offers much fatherly advice about relationships with women, even commenting on the ‘complaint’ of Heloise about her being so attached to past pleasures that she could not feel true repentance. Ruys's presentation of the six Planctus or Laments of Abelard (of which she similarly presents a critical edition, translation and commentary) is equally significant in demonstrating a level of human engagement and sensitivity that goes beyond the large cycle of hymns that he wrote at the request of Heloise for the nuns of the Paraclete. Ruys offers probing analysis of the way in which Abelard writes about the imagined laments of a series of biblical figures over individuals whom they held dear. Thus the series begins with a lament of Dina, a daughter of Jacob, raped by a non-Israelite, followed by one of Jacob over his sons (above all Benjamin), one of the virgins of Israel over the daughter of Jephta and of Israel over Samson, followed by a final couple of laments, of David over Abner, and over Saul and Jonathan. These are searing compositions, that Ruys suggests were provoked by Abelard responding to Heloise, whose sense of the tragic is evident in her surviving letters. It was unfortunate that the Latin and English could not be placed on facing pages. None the less, this volume deserves to be studied by all those who are fascinated by these two personalities.