To produce a condensed version of a great work is a constant struggle between faithfulness to the original and an awareness of what the new reader needs to know. In this 13th edition of Taylor, Professor Mant as editor has striven mightily to reduce the two-volume 12th edition into a new one-volume compendium of English forensic medicine, to present the pertinent materials for the present-day practitioner, and also apparently to keep the purchase price within range of its intended readers. To a considerable degree he has succeeded, eliminating virtually all of the sections on toxicology and much of the previous extensive discussion described as “sexual medical jurisprudence.” These deletions make the 13th edition much more ready-reference for the practicing coroner or barrister, although it is a shame to leave out such titillating chapters as “virginity and defloration,” and “masturbation, indecent exposure, and gross indecency”! Of course anyone interested in those subjects could always refer to the previous edition.