The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, According to the Use of the Church of England; Together with the Psalter or Psalms of David, Pointed as They are to be Sung or Said in Chur

24mo., [iv], 405 pages, title-page and text printed in red and black, also specially bound in are 6 unique finely hand-painted pictorial illuminations on vellum paper (see illustations), marbled endpapers, all edges blocked in gilt, specially bound in full contemporary red morocco with both covers and spine covered in repeating gilt fleur-de-lys des patterns, all within gilt-ruled double borders and a further outer gilt decorated border together with decorative inner gilt dentelles. A near fine copy in a most handsome binding with only light occasional minimal wear to some extremities which contains 6 unique finely hand-painted illuminated drawings on vellum paper which have been professionally bound into this fine work. With a neat Presentation inscription to blank front endpaper, 'Florence V. Higginson from Edgar Selright, June 27. 1882' "In Memoriam". The Book of Common Prayer is the name given to a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion and by other Christian churches historically related to Anglicanism. The first prayer book, published in 1549 in the reign of King Edward VI of England, was a product of the English Reformation following the break with Rome. The work of 1549 was the first prayer book to include the complete forms of service for daily and Sunday worship in English. In 1604, James I ordered some further changes, the most significant being the addition to the Catechism of a section on the Sacraments; this resulted in the 1604 Book of Common Prayer. Following the tumultuous events surrounding the English Civil War, when the Prayer Book was again abolished, another revision was published as the 1662 prayer book. That edition remains the official prayer book of the Church of England, although throughout the later twentieth century, alternative forms which were technically supplements have largely displaced the Book of Common Prayer for the main Sunday worship of most English parish churches.…