The whole book of Psalms. Collected into English metre by Thomas Sternhold, John Hopkins and others. A critical edition of texts and tunes. 2 vols. Edited by Beth Quitslund and Nicholas Temperley. (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 387; Renaissance English Text Society Seventh Series, 36 [for 2011]). Pp. xlviii + 504, lvi + 1096 incl. 9 figs, 6 tables and 14 music examples. Tempe, A z : Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (ACMRS), 2018. $192. 978 0 86698 435 5; 978 0 86

The editors assert that the source edition was chosen due to the care given in the editing process of this ornate and luxury volume, because it provides the fullest collection of texts and tunes of any edition printed before the late 1570s, and also provides ‘the earliest surviving instance of John Day's final wording for the title page’ (vol. i, p. xxv–xxvi, quotation at p. xxvi). Volume ii contains the critical apparatus necessary to fully understand the edition printed in volume i. It begins with a substantial historical essay, providing a detailed historical account of the development of the Whole book (and metrical psalmody more generally), its inclusion in the worship of English congregations and its place outside of the parish church. Following this are eight appendices, which contain information on all known predecessors; editions and companions to 1603; the 1549 Sternhold and Hopkins psalm texts; texts that were common to the Whole book but absent in the source edition; information on the tunes, musical revisions and books published with settings of the metrical psalms for four or more voices; references to the Whole book in churchwardens’ accounts for the period 1558–68; and notes on textual contents for each printing series.