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

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.

Table of Contents:
1. From Henry VIII to the first Edwardian prayer book; 2. The second Edwardian prayer book; 3. Mary's reign and Elizabeth's first Parliament; 4. Richard Grafton's edition (STC 16291); 5. The first Jugge-and-Cawood edition (STC 16292); 6. The preliminaries: collaboration and cancels; 7. The orphaned ordinal; 8. The third and fourth editions; 9. The quarto and octavo editions; 10. The 1561 revision of the calendar; 11. Concluding summary.

About the Author :
Peter W. M. Blayney is an independent scholar widely considered to be the leading expert on the book trade in Tudor and early Stuart London. His publications include The Texts of King Lear and their Origins (1982), which reconstructed the printing of the First Quarto in unprecedented detail, his ground-breaking monograph, The Bookshops in Paul's Cross Churchyard (1990), which pioneered the field of book-trade topography and The Stationers' Company and the Printers of London, 1501–1557 (2013), one of the most important contributions to the history of the book trade and printing for several generations. He has been awarded fellowships by Trinity College, Cambridge, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Bibliographical Society.

Review :
'… 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 'This is a remarkable feat of scholarship, worth buying for its demolition of much extant thinking around the Black Rubric alone. Above all else, it is a reminder of how many stories bubble out from, and are inherent in, our ancient liturgy.' Fergus Butler-Gallie, Church Times