Common
Worship: This
replaces the Alternative Service Book; liturgies will be available
at this C of E site as they are developed. Morning Prayer, Evening
Prayer, and Night Prayer from Common Worship with with today's
readings are also
available from the Church of England
Alternative
Service Book (ASB):
several sections available
in RTF format; other Church of England liturgical resources are available
here as well.
The Shorter Prayer Book (1946) 
1928
Proposed Book of Common Prayer. Approved
by the Church, but rejected by Parliament.
A
Prayer Book Revised, a proposed
revision from 1913, said to be by Percy Dearmer, along Anglo-Catholic
lines. (from the Internet Archive)
Liturgies
of the Nonjurors: The
Communion office, and descriptions of these 18th-century liturgies.
1689
Proposed Book of Common Prayer: The
Liturgy of Comprehension.
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| The
Church of England is, of course, the "mother church" of
all the churches in the Anglican Communion. We have here the texts
(or links to the texts) of all Church of England Books of Common
Prayer dating back to the first, in 1549 - plus quite a bit of other
related material. Everything is presented here more or less chronologically,
starting with the newest. |
Links in bold are on this site. |
- 1662 Book of Common Prayer:
- The complete 1662
Book of Common Prayer, in HTML format, from Lynda Howell.;
also in PDF
format (note that this is a single very large file)
- The Church of England also has the
1662 BCP online; not complete as yet.
- The
1662 BCP, as
printed by John Baskerville in 1762; in PDF format
- The 1662 BCP,
as emgraved and printed by John
Sturt in 1717; as PDF graphics.

- The 1662 BCP from
the original manuscript, as PDF graphics from Google Books, published
in 1892.
- The 1662 Book
as a series of B/W pictures in
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format, from a 1771 printing (Griffiths 1771/2).
- The Internet Archive
has several 19th and late 18th century Books of Common Prayer online.
All are in PDF graphics and plain text formats (the text files often
have errors).
- A "current" (1953) standard
copy, from OUP (Griffiths 1913/3); includes the English Hymnal
- 1936:
Cambridge U Press for SPCK, with prayers for Edward VIII;
- about
1915, Eyre & Spottiswoode (Griffiths 1862/2);
- An
elaboate and richly decorated edition from Essex House Press
(Griffiths 1904/1)
- one
from about 1892, which includes many marginal notes (Griffiths
1892/1);
- 1880's:
Cambridge U Press for SPCK (Griffiths 1882/5)
- 1866;
"The Prayer Book Interleved with Historical Illustrations and
Explanatory Notes", Cambridge U. Press & Rivingtons (Griffiths
1866/3)
- 1863,
richly decorated, publ. Bickers & Bush (Griffiths 1863/22);
- 1850
with notes by Richard Mant, publ. Rivingtons (Griffiths 1850/24);
- "The
Pictorial Edition", publ. C Knight, 1838 (Griffiths 1838/24)
- 1816,
Oxford U Press (Griffiths 1816/7);
- 1816,
Oxford U Press (Griffiths 1816/8);
- 1811,
"The Christian's Best Companion", with notes (Griffiths
1811/18);
- about
1808, Cambridge U Press (one of the first stereotyped printings);
- 1794,
Good & Harding, London (Griffiths 1794/9)
- and 1753, Baskett, London (Griffiths 1753/1)

- Google Books
also has a number of 18th and 19th century printings online. All are
as PDF graphics and may have lines cut off, pages out of order and possibly
missing, etc.
- The
Prayer Book Interleaved with Historical Illustrations and Explanatory
Notes, by WM Campion & WJ Beaumont (1898 13th ed.,
Griffiths 1898/3)
- Oxford
U Press, 1868 (Griffiths 1866/4)
- Oxford
U Press, 1865 (Griffiths 1865/9)
- 1859,
Oxford U Press for SPCK (Griffiths 1859/8)
- one
from 1853, with elaborate woodcut borders by Mary Byfield, publ.
Pickering (Griffiths 1853/22) ;
- in
phonography (i. e., Pitman shorthand - 1853, Griffiths 1853/24);
also from
the Internet Archive, 1869 (Griffiths 1869/9);
- 1852,
"with illustrations, chiefly from the Old Masters", Oxford
U Press (Griffiths 1852/31) ;
- 1840
with notes by Richard Mant, publ. Parker & Rivingtons (Griffiths
1840/23a);
- 1831
from Oxford U Press (Griffiths 1828/10);
- 1829,
Oxford U Press (Griffiths 1829/10);
- 1825,
Oxford U Press
- 1824,
Oxford U Press (Griffiths 1824/18);
- two edited with comments by Sir John Bayley (1816,
Griffiths 1816/1 and 1824,
Griffiths 1824/1);
- 1815,
Oxford U Press (Griffiths 1815/12);
- 1814,
Cambridge U Press (Griffiths 1814/6) ;
- 1809
"with an introduction" by Rev. Richard Warner (Griffiths
1809/13).
- 1784,
Oxford U Press (Griffiths 1784/2);
- 1765,
Cambridge U Press (Griffiths 1765/3);
- Holy
Communion
in large type.
- Morning Prayer
and Evening Prayer (from the 1662 book), and Compline with today's readings
are available on the Church
of England's web site.
- Variations in the 1662 Book:
Yes, there have been changes over the years - now you can date that
old Prayer Book.
- The 1662
BCP in Latin.
- The 1662
BCP in French
- The 1662
BCP in Spanish
- The 1662 BCP in Hebrew
- The 1662 BCP in Dutch

- Portions of the 1662
BCP in Esperanto
- Evening Prayer in
Manx

- The 1662 Book
has been translated into many languages. Links to all may be
found on our Other Languages page. Several
of these are on the web thanks to Project
Canterbury. Another site hosts the 1662 Book in Manx
Gaelic. The Internet Archive has the 1662 BCP in Arabic
(1902, Griffiths 8:9) "Ecclesiastical"
Greek (1923, Griffiths 45:8), and in Eskimo,
or Inuktitut (1900, Griffiths 32:2), all in PDF. Google Books additionally
has the 1662 BCP in Mohawk
(1842, Griffiths 111:8).
- Evening
Prayer in Jèrriais - a French dialect of the Channel Is.
- We also have the
1918 Canadian BCP (very similar to the 1662 book) in
Ukrainian.

|
Title page of the
1662 BCP, as currently printed
"Griffiths" refers to books listed in David Griffiths' Bibliography
of the Book of Common Prayer. |
1559
Book of Common Prayer
The Elizabethan Book
1552
Book of Common Prayer
The second Prayer
Book of Edward VI
Merbeke's
Book of Common Prayer Noted (1550)
The Book of Common
Prayer put to music
1549
Book of Common Prayer 
The first Book of
Common Prayer
The
Order for the Communion 1548
The first communion
service in English.
Exhortation
& Litany (1544)
The first liturgy
in English
The
Sarum Missal: The
Communion service commonly used in the English Church before the Book
of Common Prayer; in Latin and English.
The Directory
for the Public Worship of God, which
replaced the Book of Common Prayer between 1645 and 1660, is more
of an outline of worship than a fixed liturgy, in keeping with its
Puritan background. It is available online, from (not surprisingly)
two conservative Presbyterian groups, the Reformed
Presbyterian Church, and the Evangelical
Presbyterian Church.
Ever wonder what
those Homilies referred to in the 39 Aritcles really are? They are
actual sermons, which are now online
in ZIPped form. They are also available from the
Anglican Library. |
Title page of the
first Book of Common Prayer, 1549 |