This book completes Lionel Adey's study of English hymnody which began with Hymns and the Christian 'Myth' (1986). Looking at a wide range of adult and school hymnals used between 1700 and 1939, Adey investigates the social context in which the hymns were sung and their influence on the singers. Class and Idol in the English Hymn is pertinent not only to academics in fields of literature, religion, history, and psychology, but also to hymn lovers, hymn writers, and clergy.

Lionel Adey's profile page

Lionel Adey is a professor in the English department at the University of Victoria.

An important book, which, like its predecessor Hymns and the Christian "Myth," will give students of hymnody a new slant on many hymns and hymnbooks ... A book which no student of hymnody can afford to overlook.

The Expository Times

Scholars who are interested in interdisciplinary studies will want to read this work, and those scholars who work in the area of hymnology cannot afford to ignore it.

Religious Studies Review

A perusal of Adey's painstaking study will reward all students of English society and religion, not to mention hymnologists.  His careful observations will be of use not only in confirming some of our most common notions regarding popular Victorian Protestantism, but also - and especially - in qualifying and revising others.

Toronto Journal of Theology