Everyman's History of the Prayer Book: With 99 Illustrations, and Matter from the American Edition Relating to the American Book of Common Prayer, by Percy Dearmer

Originally published: 1912
Publisher/Year: Independently published/2025
Type: Paperback
Pages: 255
Dimensions: 5” x 8”  
Weight: 306g
Condition: Brand New

Description:

The Book of Common Prayer is not merely a manual of worship but one of the great monuments of English-speaking Christianity. Its cadences have shaped devotion for centuries; its prayers have steadied nations in crisis and comforted the faithful in private sorrow; its theology—clear, scriptural, and catholic—has formed the backbone of Anglican identity since the Reformation. Yet the Prayer Book did not appear fully formed, nor has it remained unchanged. It is the fruit of long struggle, careful scholarship, pastoral insight, and the lived experience of worshipping communities across generations

This Everyman’s history sets out to tell that story with the same clarity and sympathy with which Percy Dearmer approached all his work. It traces the Prayer Book from the medieval rites that preceded it, through the genius of Cranmer’s first English liturgies, the upheavals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the refinements that produced the beloved 1662 book. Along the way, readers will encounter the people, controversies, and ideals that shaped Anglican worship—its characteristic dignity, simplicity, and reverence.

By including material on the American Prayer Book, this volume acknowledges that the Anglican liturgical tradition is both unified and diverse: a family of books sharing a common ancestry and theological heart, yet expressing that inheritance in forms suited to different peoples and times. Dearmer’s approachable style invites readers—whether scholars, clergy, or curious laypeople—to appreciate the Prayer Book as a living tradition, shaped by history but continually renewed in worship.

Everyman’s History of the Prayer Book therefore offers more than a chronological survey. It is an invitation to understand how the Anglican way of prayer came to be, why it endures, and how its influence extends well beyond the English Church to the wider Anglican Communion. In attending to both the English and American developments, the reader is better equipped to see the richness, resilience, and international breadth of the Prayer Book tradition.

English edition originally published by Mowbrays, London, 1912.

CONTENTS:

I. The Bible in the Prayer Book
II. The Question of Set Forms of Prayer
III. The Contents of the Prayer Book
IV. The Development of Service Books
V. The First Stages of Liturgical Change
VI. The First English Prayer Book
VII. The Reign of Anarchy and the Second Prayer Book
VIII. The Elizabethan Prayer Book
IX. The Fourth Prayer Book and the Authorized Version
X. The Savoy Conference
XI. The Fifth English Prayer Book
XII. Morning and Evening Prayer
XIII. The Litany
XIV. The Holy Communion
XV. Baptism, Catechizing, and Confirmation
XVI. The Occasional Services and the Ordinal
XVII. The American Prayer Book*
Family Tree of the Prayer Book

*From the American Edition.
Please do not hesitate to get in touch with any questions about this product. We are happy to combine postage for those who buy multiple items from this store, but you may need to request an invoice.