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The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer: A Worldwide Survey. Edited by Charles Hefling and Cynthia Shattuck. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006, Pp. xvi, 614. $45.00.)
There was a time-ninety-seven years ago, to be exact-when a person could write a creditable overview of the development and growth of the Book of Common Prayer in just sixty-four pages (J. H. Benton, The Book of Common Prayer: Its Origin and Growth, Boston, privately printed, 1910). To be sure, there were longer books that examined the form and every prayer contained in the prayer book, but these all were focused on one particular book, for example, the English prayer book of 1662 or the American 1928 book. They were all concerned with books, whether English or American, that were virtually the same book, notwithstanding their many minor, and not so minor, variations.
It is quite remarkable that such...