Classical reception occupies an uneasy position at the start of the twenty-first century. It is still perceived as a subject for the élite — children who are not educated privately are lucky if they have access to Latin and Greek lessons — and yet the subject is enjoying an enormous revival in the public consciousness. This revival is being shaped to a large extent by the rôle that it is playing in popular culture. The different facets and implications of this ‘democratic turn’ are beginning to be the subject of academic study (note in particular the forthcoming volume Hardwick and Harrison (eds), Classics in the Modern World – a Democratic Turn?). Paula James deftly negotiates her analysis of the reception of Pygmalion in screen versions of the myth, guiding us from films of the 1920s and 1930s, such as Metropolis (1927) and A Star is Born (1937) up to the recent cult television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) and films such as Notting Hill (1999) and Miss Congeniality (2000). J. combines considerable erudition about recent scholarship on Ovid's Pygmalion which is currently shaping our understanding of the myth, and about the various cultural influences which marked alternative versions of the myth for different generations. I particularly enjoyed her sensitive discussion of Burne-Jones' Pygmalion and the Image sequence and the ways in which these images are echoed and reflected in films from My Fair Lady (1964) to SIMØNE (2002). This is a study which is unusually wide-ranging, and which combines close and probing analyses of Ovid's text with a meticulous and detailed knowledge of a vast corpus of films. The book is enriched still further by J.'s lucid exposition of the cultural histories in which these different screen versions are embedded. And so we are led through a cultural history of the various different social issues which the Pygmalion myth addresses — what constitutes the ‘perfect woman’? How does the image change at different times and in different societies? Who controls the fashioning of these images? What does this teach us about the dangers of fantasy, of misogyny? Underpinning the whole study is the issue of how myths survive and to whom they belong.

If I had a quibble it is that occasionally the tone of the book is a little too relaxed — there are a number of conversational asides in parentheses, and the identity of the perceived target audience appears to slip. And yet this is a book that seeks to embrace a wide audience in order to emphasize the abiding power of the classical tradition. J.'s refreshing accessibility is a large part of the book's charm and success. Ovid's Myth of Pygmalion on Screen is that rare phenomenon — a serious and important work of scholarship, which is great fun to read.