It is a great help towards more, thoughtful worship if we know something about the great company of men and women who wrote the classic hymns of Britain - some thing about their lives, their spiritual stories and their records as authors. This book gives us the essential facts together with a critical commentary. The result is a fresh introduction to a most interesting slice of history, from Isaac Watts publishing his `songs before unknown' in 1707, through the Wesleys and the Catholic Revival, to the death of the prolific John Ellerton in 1893.