These superbly reproduced annotated pages form a profoundly moving human document which certainly ought to appeal to a wider public than those specially interested in St Thomas More’s life and writings. The ‘Prayer Book’ referred to in the title consists of two books, bound together. The first is a Book of Hours, namely the Little Hours of Our Lady, together with a number of occasional prayers, the Seven Penitential Psalms, the Fifteen Gradual Psalms, the Litany of the Saints and the (...) Office of the Dead. The second book is the Psalter, really a one-volume Breviary without the lessons and collects, for as well as the psalms the Psalter contains the dominical and ferial antiphons and hymns. The binding dates from 1530-1540, though it is not possible to determine whether the two books were bound together while in St Thomas More’s possession. The fact that each now lacks a number of pages seems to indicate a later binding. Inside the front cover, on a pasted down leaf which may have been originally a fly-leaf, is written: Liber quondam Thomae Mori militis in multis locis manu sua propria inscriptus. (shrink)