In 1995, the Vaughan Association was established by the late Anne Cluysenaar and Peter Thomas. Two years later, Scintilla, the association's annual journal, was founded, with the goals of expanding our knowledge of the lives and works of Henry Vaughan and his twin brother Thomas, and of publishing contemporary creative works on Vaughanian themes. The new three-volume Oxford University Press edition of The Works of Henry Vaughan (hereafter Works), edited by Donald R. Dickson, Alan Rudrum, and Robert Wilcher is, in part, the fruit of such early labors to restore Henry Vaughan to his rightful place in the cultural imagination, revealing the significance and relevance of his art and thought. It brings together for the first time in one edition—which should now be considered the definitive scholarly edition—every known text by Henry Vaughan, including his handwritten notes in books in his personal library.

Works is exceptional by any editorial standard, and it offers, in fact, far more than we would expect of a typical scholarly edition, given that the comprehensive introductory matter in the first volume as well as the substantial headnotes for each major work in the first and second volumes provide the reader with rich details about Henry Vaughan's life; historical and cultural contexts; religious, philosophical, theological, and medical opinions; aesthetic style and habits; and literary and conceptual influences. The publishing and reception history, as well as the structure or organization of his works, are also explored at great length. This exhaustive and engaging introductory material is supplemented by extensive commentary in the third volume—569 pages in total—on every single Vaughan text in the collection, including his letters and medical marginalia. The commentary is based on reliable scholarly sources and not only helps readers negotiate the meaning of the texts, but also provides them with an account of how they have been historically read by critics.

The editorial approach taken to Vaughan's texts is sensitive to their historicity. In reproducing the works, the editors retain, for the most part, the spelling, capitalization, and punctuation of the original texts (recognizing that they may not be authorial). They have chosen to emend substantives or accidentals only where they believe errors have been made or where they might cause significant confusion in the reader; however, they record all such emendations. The early modern feel of the edition is strengthened by the inclusion of nineteen illustrations that take readers back to the time, structures, and spaces in which Vaughan lived, studied, worked, and wrote. One editorial choice of particular help to readers is the placement of textual notations at the bottom of each page (rather than at the back of the volumes), in which any substantive and relevant punctuation variants that occur in selected earlier editions are recorded (though wisely, variants that are the result of punctuation practices from the nineteenth century onward are ignored). The placement of this type of note alerts readers to any significant changes made over time to the copy texts selected by the editors. Readers can thus quickly identify a text in which wording or punctuation was revised by Vaughan (e.g., “Isaacs Marriage” in Silex Scintillans [1655]) or by later editors. That the commentary on the content of the works is contained in a separate volume is welcome, given that it allows the reader to focus on the beauty and power of the works themselves (without too much external editorial furniture cluttering up the page).

I am tempted to quibble with one editorial choice: the separation of the first and second parts of Silex Scintillans based on dating of publication. Dickson, Rudrum, and Wilcher reproduce Vaughan's printed works in the order of initial publication date, which is extremely useful in terms of following the development of his literary career. However, this required the separation of the two parts of Silex Scintillans (published as a unit in 1655, albeit using “unsold sheets of the 1650 edition” [539]). On the one hand, their decision allows us to see the 1650 edition as it first appeared, without the preface from the second edition, which is so often used as an interpretive lens through which to read its poems. On the other hand, modern readers do not encounter the 1655 edition as it would have appeared to early modern readers. Still, the desire to structure the three-volume set chronologically is perfectly reasonable, and it would have been unviable to reprint the first part twice in an already lengthy edition.

The well-informed and cogent paratextual material in this new edition of the Works makes it clear that the writings of Henry Vaughan—the product of civil wars (and culture wars) and their aftermath—are more relevant than ever. His eight major works—Poems, with the Tenth Satyre of Juvenal Englished (1646), Silex Scintillans (1650, 1655), Olor Iscanus (1651), The Mount of Olives (1652), Flores Solitudinis (1654), Hermetical Physick (1655), The Chymists Key (1657), and Thalia Rediviva (1678)—speak to our own troubled times. They exemplify or address such subjects as writing literature in a polarized age; literature as a form of political resistance; the covert politics of translation; the therapeutic benefits of creative writing; finding psycho-spiritual hope and peace during periods of turmoil; the desire to remain holy or untainted in an age of dirty dealings; the methods by which to secure one's mental and physical health; the value and benefits of nature; and the meaning of life and willing acceptance of death. For those interested in following up on these and other topics, the editors provide a twenty-page select bibliography of primary and secondary sources at the conclusion of the third volume.

In sum, Dickson, Rudrum, and Wilcher have produced an exemplary scholarly edition of the works of Henry Vaughan. It is characterized by scrupulously edited texts as well as accessible and authoritative paratextual material that serve as a map for readers to navigate Vaughan's richly diverse and deeply relevant oeuvre. It is impossible to imagine three editors whose combined expertise on Vaughan would equal that of Dickson, Rudrum, and Wilcher, given that they have dedicated decades of their academic lives to assessing and analyzing the works of the Welsh writer. This edition represents a significant milestone for Vaughan studies and will hopefully encourage students and scholars to revisit the works of the self-styled Silurist. No research library should be without it.