An encyclopaedia devoted to a single composer is the ultimate accolade from the scholarly community. After the complete works (though in Handel's case the Hallische Händel-Ausgabe, the modern replacement of Chrysander's Händel-Gesellschaft, is still incomplete after more than 60 years), the biographies, the critical and source studies and the scholarly conferences, an encyclopaedia or companion with dictionary-style entries relating to various aspects of a composer's life, works and reputation is a convenient way of summarizing the accumulated scholarship. So, for example, we have Oxford Composer Companions to J. S. Bach and Haydn, a Cambridge University Press volume devoted to Mozart, and now The Cambridge Handel encyclopedia. A volume of this sort tends to stand or fall as much by the choice of entries as the quality of the writing, and the selection process inevitably reflects the preoccupations of the editors and their perceived readership. Annette Landgraf and David Vickers are young scholars representing the two main camps of Handel research: Landgraf is a member of the editorial office of the Hallische Händel-Ausgabe while Vickers is a former doctoral student of Donald Burrows at the Open University and has been running http://gfhandel.org, the website that hosts the page for the Handel Institute among other things. Vickers also reviews CDs for The Gramophone and has been chairman of the panel choosing the winner of the annual Stanley Sadie Handel Recording Prize, which perhaps explains why all those chosen to puff the volume are recent or current performers from the English-speaking world (Harry Christophers, William Christie, Charles Mackerras, Paul McCreesh, Nicholas McGegan and Trevor Pinnock) rather than writers or scholars, and why there are appendices devoted to ‘Handel's music on CD and DVD’ and ‘An overview of fifty Handel performers, 1959–2009’. I can see why there should be such an emphasis on recordings, though it is the aspect of the volume that will date most quickly, and I doubt that sales will be boosted by trying to appeal to those who want to read potted biographies of current Handel performers or need to be recommended recordings of particular works.