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'In the midst of life we are in death.' The words of the Book of Common Prayer have permeated deep into the English language all over the world. For nearly 500 years, and for countless people, it has provided a background fanfare for a marriage or a funeral march at a burial. Yet this familiarity also hides a violent and controversial history. When it was first produced the Book of Common Prayer provoked riots and rebellion, and it was banned before being translated into a host of global languages and adopted as the basis for worship in the USA and elsewhere to the present day. This edition presents the work in three different states: the first edition of 1549, which brought the Reformation into people's homes; the Elizabethan prayer book of 1559, familiar to Shakespeare and Milton; and the edition of 1662, which embodies the religious temper of the nation down to modern times. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.… (more)
User reviews
The Good: The quality of this volume is what you would expect from Oxford, but at a more reasonable price—
The Bad: The Propers for the Day (the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels) are not included. This appears to have been a compromise to prevent the book from getting too unwieldy. A far worse gaffe is the Introduction. Cummings' theology presents several serious problems. One is that he is trapped in the modern conundrum of thinking that Protestant is the opposite of Catholic. Another is the notion that 'the Prayer Book was written in “the ordinary language of its time”', a rather severe error. The concept of the Reformation as a return to primitive Christianity, and the corresponding claim to the patristic *consensus fidelium*, is foreign to him.
I wanted badly to give this book five stars when I obtained a copy, but it was not to be. I feel that this would be especially valuable for non-Anglicans who probably do not have the three included BCP texts as separate volumes, and are better read on the Reformation sources. It is less valuable to serious Anglicans who may have the English Prayer Book Society's edition of 1549 and 1552 in one volume, and John Booty's scholarly edition of 1559. If you have those books, you won't need this. Otherwise, I recommend it.