After the 1662 Book of Common Prayer was adopted, there were a number of efforts to revise it, the first being in 1689. Around the turn of the previous century, a serious attempt to produce a new Book of Common Prayer gained fruition within the Church of England, resulting in a new Book after about twenty years of work, in 1927. This revision of the Prayer Book was basically the 1662 Book with additional newer versions of services, the use of which by Congregations was to be purely permissive. As the Church of England is an Established, or State, Church, approval by Parliament was required for this Book. In spite of the fact that this new Prayer Book was approved by wide margins by both the Church of England Convocations and the Church Assembly, it was voted down by Parliament in December, 1927. Revisions were made in the following year, but these were also rejected by Parliament. Much of Parliament's objections concerned the reserved sacrament, which was allowed in this book for the first time. Some of this can be seen in the many changes made between 1927 and 1928 in the Alternative Order for Communion of the Sick. In spite of Parliament's rejection, use of at least some of the revised services in this book was fairly common in subsequent years.

A slightly expanded version of this history, along with the current legal status of the 1928 Proposed Book and a few of the 1928 services, may be found on the Church of England's web site.

Perhaps because of this experience, the Church of England since that time has made Prayer Book revision through the introduction of "Alternative" Books, keeping the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as its official Prayer Book. Such books were issued in 1980 (the Alternative Service Book) and in 2000 (Common Worship), and became far more widely used than is the official 1662 Book.

The main text presented here is that which was submitted to Convocations in February 1927 ("the green book", the cover of which may be seen above). Significant revisions made between then and the final submission to Parliament in 1928 are indicated in the text; these differences come from a copy of the 1928 Proposed Book published by the SPCK (title page at right). These books are listed in David Griffiths' Bibliography of the Book of Common Prayer as 1927/3 and 1928/6, respectively.

In the Table of Contents below, items in grey are unchanged from 1662; those in black are new in 1927, or contain revisions to the 1662 text. Those in red, of course, are links to the 1927 or 1928 texts.

THE CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK