The Booke of Common Prayer of the Churche of England, Its Making and Revisions M.D.XLIX-M.D.CLXI Set Forth in Eighty Illustrations with Introduction and Notes.

In edibus Societatis pro Christiana Fide Propaganda [=SPCK], Londini, first edition, 1949. Cloth, tall 8vo, 26 cm,. 110 pp, 80 plates. From the blurb - "We all know about the Breviaries, Missals, Processionals, and Manuals, which our pre-Reformation ancestors were accustomed to see in use in their churches; but, unless we can spend time in visiting libraries, we have little opportunity to see for ourselves such of these books as have been preserved. The same is true of the earlier editions of the Book of Common Prayer. If anything, these are both rarer and more inaccessible than examples of the Latin service books for which they were substituted. This little volume is designed, not of course for specialists, but for the many others who are not less interested to know how the old Latin and the new English service books appeared to the clergy and lay folk who handled and used them. The eighty illustrations reproduce pages from pre-Reformation service books and from successive editions of the English Prayer Book. There is a brief commentary upon each page; and for the non-specialist, whose recollection of Prayer Book history needs revivifying, there is a short introduction which, the compiler hopes, will stir up in his readers a will to study the more substantial works upon the subject." Contents: Preface; Introduction; 1. Pre-Reformation Service Books: Plates 1-13; 2. The English Litany of 1544: Plates 14-16; 3. The Order of The Communion, 1548: Plates 17, 18; 4. The First Edwardine Prayer Book, 1549: Plates 19-31; 5. The Psalter of 1549: Plates 32, 33; 6. Merbecke's “Book of Common Prayer Noted”: Plates 34-36; 7. The First Edwardine Ordinal, 1550: Plates 37-41; 8. The Second Edwardine Prayer Book, 1552 .: Plates 42-51; 9. The Elizabethan Prayer Book, 1559: Plates 52-57; 10. Queen Elizabeth's Latin Prayer Book, 1560 .: Plates 58, 59; 11. The Jacobean Prayer Book, 1603-4: Plates 60-62; 12. The Scottish Prayer Book, 1637 .: Plates 63-70; 13. The Revision of 1661 : Plates 71-80. Name and date on front free endpaper, covers heavily rubbed from old dampstaining, musty-smelling.