David Jasper is a theologian with a particular interest in the nineteenth century. He is emeritus professor at the University of Glasgow, where he was formerly professor of literature and theology. Recent publications include The Language of Liturgy (2018). He has been an Anglican priest for forty-six years and is canon theologian of St. Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow. Jeremy Smith was professor of English philology at Glasgow, where he remains a senior research fellow and emeritus professor, and an honorary professor at St Andrews. His specialisms include English historical linguistics, medieval studies, and book history, combined recently in Transforming Early English (2020).

This is an excellent study, well researched, and is valuable for those who study liturgy, and the mind of the Victorian English Church, as well as the wider Romantic Movement. It is the first critical assessment of The Lay Folks' Mass Book since Simmons's edition, and places the work in its context. It also raises some questions for the contemporary Church of England.

• PrefaceIntroduction: Imagining the Past1.Thomas Frederick Simmons and the Lay Folks' Mass Book2.Re-imagining Medieval Devotion: Nineteenth-Century Conceptions of the English Church3.Simmons and the Early English Text Society4.Simmons as Editor: The Philologist5. Simmons as Editor: The Liturgist6. Simmons as Parish Priest, and Liturgical Reform in the Victorian Church of England7.The Afterlives of the Lay Folks' Mass BookConclusion: Liturgical Moments in TimePlatesAppendix IThe Lay Folks' Mass Book: Text and TranslationAppendix IIThe Lay Folks' Mass Book and the Sarum RiteBibliographyIndex