We formulate and study inflation, extension and twisting of prestressed cylindrical shells that are isotropic in the stress free configuration. We establish that if the prestresses vary only radially in the annular cylinder then a deformation field of the form r=r(R), θ=ΘΩZ, z=λZ is possible in annular cylinders made of any incompressible material and find sufficient conditions for the deformation to be possible when made of compressible materials. When the material is capable of undergoing large elastic deformations and has a non-linear constitutive relation, for the cases studied here, there is up to 26 percent variation in the boundary loads required to engender a given boundary displacement between the prestressed and stress free annular cylinders. On the other hand, the difference in the realized deformation field is only marginal (less than 2 percent). These are unlike the case wherein the material obeys Hooke's law and undergoes small deformations. This study has some relevance to the deformation of blood vessels. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.