This intimately personal but basically Scriptural book has already enriched the prayers of thousands. It shows why Lancelot Andrewes is remembered as one of the founders of Anglicanism.

Lancelot Andrewes preached the funeral sermon of Elizabeth I and was chairman of the group responsible for the Authorized Version to the end of II Kings. He was Dean of Westminster and Bishop of Winchester, and is buried in Southwark Cathedral. He is best known for his Preces Privatae, here introduced with an essay by Dr Hugh Martin.

These prayers were originally written in Greek, Hebrew and Latin, and the English of this edition recalls another piece of religious history, for most of it appeared as one of the Tracts for the Times in 1840, the translator being J. H. Newman. Another part is translated by the Victorian hymnologist, J. M. Neale.