This handsome re-issue is, in the hardback version, almost the same as Kermode's 1907 Bemrose and Sons version, except that it is now only 26mm thick instead of 60, and has a useful and sensitive forward by (Sir) David Wilson - an appreciation of the work, 90 years on, which rightly concludes that it has stood the test of time and that Kermode's visual records are essential because of subsequent loss or decay.

I bought my Kermode years ago when I was a student, for £7, a week's food-and-beer money, and have used it constantly. What makes me happy about these very welcome re-issues is that they will bring such heavyweight classics, the asking prices for which can easily top several hundred pounds at auction, into the reach of another generation of workers.

The Pinkfoot Press have already given us a handy-size re-issue of Allen and Anderson; Langdon's Old Cornish Crosses which re-appeared in 1988 from Wheatons of Exeter, and Westwood's Lapidarum Walliae (Redesmere Press) in 1993. To the waverers I would say: buy these, if you haven't got them.

A facsimile republication is never going to be a commercial bonanza for any firm, there is an element of real service to scholarship in such undertakings, and those who do it deserve the widest support. And don't for one moment imagine that such books are "out of date" - in the field of early Insular Art, these authors were giants. Well done indeed Pinkfoot Press. Some of us will wonder if Stuart's Sculptured Stones, or Drummond's Monuments, could command a fresh subscription-list now, inside and outwith Scotland . . .

Charles Thomas