Peter W. M. Blayney – författare

This is a study of a seventeenth-century printer and one of the books that he printed. It is an attempt to solve the problem of the relationship between the Quarto and Folio texts of King Lear, and its main purpose is to establish the bibliographical facts which are essential to a proper investigation of the 1608 Quarto text. In order to provide a context in which to assess the significance of the printing process, Peter Blayney has had to study the first two years of Okes's career in some detail. He has also paid attention to the way in which Okes's work differed from that of his predecessors in the same printing house, while investigation of proof-sheets and printers' copy has led him to examine a number of Okes's later books. Although it is primarily concerned with the printing of a single book, the present volume can therefore claim independant status as a large-scale study of a Jacobean printing house.

Bibliographers have been notoriously 'hesitant to deal with liturgies', and this volume bridges an important gap with its authoritative examination of how the Book of Common Prayer came into being. The first edition of 1549, the first Grafton edition of 1552 and the first quarto edition of 1559 are now correctly identified, while Peter W. M. Blayney shows that the first two editions of 1559 were probably finished on the same day. Through relentless scrutiny of the evidence, he reveals that the contents of the 1549 version continued to evolve both during and after the printing of the first edition, and that changes were still being made to the Elizabethan revision weeks after the Act of Uniformity was passed. His bold reconstruction is transformative for the early Anglican liturgy, and thus for the wider history of the Church of England. This major, revisionist work is a remarkable book about a remarkable book.