The Printing and the Printers of The Book of Common Prayer, 1549–1561

Peter W M Blayney author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:13th Jan '22

Should be back in stock very soon

The Printing and the Printers of The Book of Common Prayer, 1549–1561 cover

A groundbreaking new history of the origins and evolution of the Anglican liturgy which transforms understanding of the English Reformation.

This major, revisionist study upends our thinking about the ancestry and origins of the Elizabethan Book of Common Prayer, revealing it to have necessitated unprecedented levels of shared printing. In its close analysis of Anglican liturgy it will have considerable appeal to bibliographers and historians of Reformation and Tudor England.Bibliographers have been notoriously 'hesitant to deal with liturgies', and this volume bridges an important gap with its authoritative examination of how the Book of Common Prayer came into being. The first edition of 1549, the first Grafton edition of 1552 and the first quarto edition of 1559 are now correctly identified, while Peter W. M. Blayney shows that the first two editions of 1559 were probably finished on the same day. Through relentless scrutiny of the evidence, he reveals that the contents of the 1549 version continued to evolve both during and after the printing of the first edition, and that changes were still being made to the Elizabethan revision weeks after the Act of Uniformity was passed. His bold reconstruction is transformative for the early Anglican liturgy, and thus for the wider history of the Church of England. This major, revisionist work is a remarkable book about a remarkable book.

'… a densely written, excellently priced volume, generously illustrated with colour and black-and-white plates throughout. … the book will remain crucial reading material for book historians, bibliographers, and bibliophiles specialising in early modern European printing and the book trade in the years to come.' Hannah Yip, The Review of English Studies
'Blayney makes a significant contribution to understanding the history of The Book of Common Prayer … an insightful, interesting book … Essential.' R. M. Kollar, Choice

ISBN: 9781108837415

Dimensions: 235mm x 158mm x 18mm

Weight: 610g

278 pages