“A SOURCE OF SPIRITUAL INSPIRATION… FOR MOST ENGLISHMEN SECOND ONLY TO THE BIBLE”: SUMPTUOUS LARGE FOLIO 1742 BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER, IN SPLENDID CONTEMPORARY MOROCCO-GILT

BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. The Book of Common Prayer, And Administration of the Sacraments… London: Thomas Baskett and Robert Baskett, 1742. Folio (measuring 10 by 16 inches), contemporary full paneled black morocco gilt, elaborately gilt decorated spine, raised bands, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. $4800.

Impressive 1742 edition of the magisterial Book of Common Prayer, with engraved frontispiece view of St. Paul’s Cathedral, elegantly bound in contemporary full paneled morocco-gilt.

Born of Thomas Cranmer’s desire for liturgical texts upon which all of Europe’s Protestant, English-speaking churches could agree, the beautiful and dignified language of the Book of Common Prayer, first issued in 1549, has considerably influenced not only ecclesiastical practice, but has served “as a source of spiritual inspiration… for most Englishmen second only to the Bible” (PMM 75). With engraved frontispiece depicting St. Paul’s Cathedral, ornamental woodcut head- and tailpieces and historiated woodcut initials. Bound with a 1744 edition of Sternhold and Hopkins’ metrical psalter. Griffiths 1742:1.

Occasional light foxing; minor triangular loss to lower edge of first leaf, a blank. A few abrasions to distinguished contemporary morocco, gilt bright. A beautiful volume.