The Book of Common Prayer

`Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder’; these are the words of warning, taken originally from Matthew 19:6, which have been read in English over a marrying couple ever since the first edition of the Book of Common Prayer was issued in 1549. With this and many other familiar lines, the Book of Common Prayer has shaped the ritual of life’s passages as well as daily worship for English-speaking people. No other book in the English language (not even the Bible, much less the writings of William Shakespeare) has reached more people or shaped the culture as profoundly. Now Brian Cummings has brought together into one convenient volume some of the earliest editions of the Book of Common Prayer. Cummings is the author of the inestimable study, The Literary Culture of the Reformation: Grammar and Grace (2002; rev. ante, cxix [2004], pp710–12), which was itself a landmark in the study of scriptural exegesis in the sixteenth century, and one of the finest pieces of philology of recent times. In his Introduction, Cummings reminds us that for nearly a half millennium, the Book of Common Prayer has never been out of print. As an actual book, to be handled and read, it has a daunting history in terms of its composition and printing, which he handles deftly in his introduction and notes

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