Cambridge 1629 Anglican Trilogy

In 1629, Thomas and John Buck, Cambridge University Press printers, published three texts—the Book of Common Prayer, the Bible and the Whole Book of Psalmes (known as the “Metrical Psalter”)—that were often bound together in one volume [UL], 1 one copy of which is now on permanent loan to the Archives & Special Collections of Ekstrom Library, University of Louisville. We do not know with any certainty when UL was bound, but because the KJV second edition was published in 1638, with many scholarly corrections based on the original languages, we can assume that the three texts were bound together within a decade of the 1629 imprint date. This case study, based necessarily on incomplete evidence of the book’s history and use, casts light on diverse ways on the history, politics and culture of its time. We can excavate the original printed text from the changes made by readers and owners, who marked the physical artifact, making it unique, as we can see by looking at its variances from other copies, as illustrated below. Important open questions remain, especially those concerning the attribution of its binding, but triangulation from UL and other copies to the history of the period helps us recapture, reveal and qualify our understanding of the edition in its own time