THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER: The Texts of 1549, 1559, and 1662.

First edition, first printing. Original blue cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in the dustwrapper showing John Gipkyn's painting 'Dr King preaching at Old St Paul's before James I' (1616). Pale grey endpapers, bound-in burgundy ribbon book mark. A very near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents clean throughout. Small bump to the lower spine tip, light crease to the outer corner of one page (seemingly folded in production). In the dustwrapper, with a little wear to upper edges. Not price-clipped (£16.99 to the rear panel). A lovely, sharp copy.

Brian Cummings' meticulously edited, introduced and annotated volume presents the Book Of Common Prayer in three states: "Cranmer's 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." The Prayer Book, in its changing guises, is at once a central document for the religious culture of early modern Europe, a great literary work which remains at the heart of the language we still use, and "a manual of everyday ritual: a book to live, love, and die to."