
18TH-CENTURY BOOKS
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— BIBLES —
ORDERED BY DATE
A
Lectern
Bible USED in a Lutheran Church?
Bible. German. 1710. Luther. Biblia, das ist: Die gantze heilige Schrift des Alten und Neuen Testaments. Wie solche von Herrn Doctor Martin Luther Seel. im Jahr Christi 1522. in unsere Teutsche Mutter-Sprach zu übersetzen angefangen.... Nürnberg: In Verlegung Johann Andreä Endters Seel, Sohn, und Erben, 1710. Folio (39 cm, 15.38"). Frontis., [32] ff., 1181, [1] pp., [11 (-1)] ff.; 1 plt., illus.
$1500.00

Aside from its importance in the religious tradition, Luther's translation of the Bible is probably the most important single text for the formation of Modern German. Like other Luther Bibles, this one contains his prefaces to the books of the Bible, including his theologically significant Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. It is also supplemented by the Augsburg Confession, of which, sadly, the last leaf is absent here.
In this printing, a fine engraved title-page shows an angel delivering Luther's translation of the Old Testament to a Church still in bondage to the requirements of the old Law. A similar sectional title-page, depicting God the Father, Jesus Christ, and allegorical figures of the sacraments of Baptism and Communion, comes before the New Testament. Six special pairs of leaves, bound in at various places, each offer a first page containing an engraving of biblical figures and three following pages containing their biographies. A woodcut vignette of the unusual triple arms of the city of Nürnberg appears on the title-page; a number of chapters are adorned, at head, with one-third page woodcut illustrations set in neat borders; and the books typically open with typographically appealing two-column "headers." The text is in a handsome and relatively legible fraktur. The size, decoration, and overall composition of the volume, along with its faults (especially the manner in which which pages are worn), suggest a history as a lectern Bible in a Lutheran Church.
Binding: This copy is bound in ornately blind-tooled and -stamped alum-tawed sheep over wooden boards, the front cover with three of its original etched corner bosses and with its two etched clasp-catches. (Bosses of back cover no longer present, remnants of clasps.) A martial portrait is centered on each cover; unfortunately these are now so worn that they are no longer identifiable. Perhaps they belong to the electors of Saxony who safeguarded the Lutheran faith in its infancy.
Binding as above. Covers abraded and worn, some scraping to back upper board, leather peeling back from fore-edge of front cover and opening at ends of joints, most notably at bottom of front one. Front free endpaper with inked inscription, in German, dated Philadelphia, 1852. Frontispiece with a fore-edge chip (not into image) and tears in from bottom margin and at gutter, with small loss to plate area at bottom inner corner.
A number of pages with tears extending into text, a few places with chips to bottom outer corners with loss of words but not of sense. Scattered foxing, with occasional darker small stains. Last leaf (of Confession, NOT Bible) lacking. Despite faults, a grand volume both usable and inspiring.

Very EARLY Attempt at a
Stereotyped Book
Bible. N.T. Syriac. 1717. [one line in Syriac, then] Novum Domini nostri Jesu Christi Testamentum Syriacum, cum versione Latina. Lugduni Batavorum: Apud typis Joh: Mulleri, Joh: Fil:; Vid: & fil: Cornelium Boutesteyn, & Samuelem Luchtmans, 1717. 4to (23.5 cm; 9.125"). [5] ff., 749, [1 (blank)] pp.
$1500.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
A major work in the history of printing and an important edition of the New Testament in Syriac. Its significance in the history of printing is that this second, 1717 edition of the Syriac New Testament was printed from an early version of stereotype plates developed by Muller during the first decades of the 18th century.
The “Secunda editio, a mendis purgata” on the title-page refers to corrections made in the 1717 edition of errors found in the 1708 edition. The line “cura et studio Johannis Leusden et Caroli Schaaf. Editum ad omnes editiones diligenter recensitum; & variis lectionibus, magno labore collectis, adornatum” tells the readers that Leusden (1624–99) and Schaaf (1646–1729), two of the leading scholars of Syriac in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, made this the edition one they can rely upon.
The editors did not see eye to eye on the matter of pointing, and up through Luke 17.26 Leusden's preference (based on the Chaldean system) was used — after which Schaarf began using the system favored by the Walton Polyglott — Leusden having died at that editorial point in the project!
Title in Syriac at head of title-page, which page is printed in red and black and has an engraved printer's device. There are woodcut head- and tailpieces and initials in the text, which is printed with the Syriac text in parallel columns with a Latin translation, in double-column format.
A handsome production.
Kubler, A New History of Stereotyping, pp. 39–41. Darlow & Moule 8969. Recent full brown calf, old style by Grace Bindings: raised bands, gilt ruling above and below the bands as accents, gilt center devices in spine compartments. Covers with concentric compartments accomplished using rules, rolls, and corner devices. Private presentation inscription to an Episcopal diocesan library on reverse of last leaf, with no other markings at all; a clean, satisfactory copy. (23054)
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LANGUAGES, ETC., click here.
This book also appears in the GENERAL
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Bible.
German. 1743. Luther. [Biblia, das ist: Die Heilige Schrift Altes und Neues Testaments, nach der Deutschen Uebersetzung D. Martin Luthers, mit jedes Capitels kurzen Summarien, auch beygefügten
vielen und richtigen Parllelen {sic}. Germantown: Gedruckt bey Christoph Saur, 1743]. 4to (26.3 cm, 10.375"). [2] ff. (supplied in facsimile), 995, [1 (blank)], 277, [1] pp., [1] f.
$6000.00

1743 saw the first complete Bible in a European language printed in the New World, in—of all places—Germantown, Pa., and in—of all languages—German. The colonial powers had granted monopolies for Bible printing to “home” publishers and their products were priced sufficiently low to discourage illegal printing by colonial printers, which left it to German-Americans—a people here as independent settlers, not “colonists”—to first print a Bible of their own. Christopher Saur (or Sower, as he Englished it) was something of a renaissance man, university educated and a physician, and he used his connections in Germany to obtain the gift of the fraktur type used in this Bible. It was printed in an edition of 1200 copies, and cost 18 shillings. Another complete American Bible did not follow until Saur’s son, also Christopher, published a further edition in 1763.

Arndt lists three states for this edition, of which this appears to be C, based on the absence of a two-leaf addendum giving a short history of Bible translation—that a buyer could choose to have bound in or not.
Rumball-Petre, Rare Bibles, 159; Darlow & Moule
4240; O’Callaghan 22; Wright, Early Bibles of America, 24–44;
Evans 5127–28; Sabin 5191; Arndt, The First Century of German Language
Printing in the United States of America, 47C; Hildeburn, The Issues
of the Press in Pennsylvania, 1685-1784, 804. Contemporary calf over
bevelled boards. Binding scratched and abraded with tears to spine leather.
Hinges (inside only) open. A printed poem has been affixed to the front pastedown,
over a strip of cloth. Ownership inscriptions in German (in gothic cursive)
and English on endpapers. Pp. 1–2 with loss of part of margins, some
text, and part of headpiece, repaired with paper. Lightly age-toned with
darker brown-spotting, some waterstaining, occasional dog ears, and some
holing or chipping in the margins—some of the latter repaired with
paper. First two leaves, i.e., main title-page and preface supplied in facsimile;
the New Testament title-page is present.
Bible. N.T. Gospels. Gothic. Ulfilas. 1750. Sacrorum evangeliorum versio gothica ex codice argenteo emendata atque suppleta, cum interpretatione
latina & annotationibus Erici Benzelii .... Oxonii: E typographeo Clarendoniano, 1750. 4to (28.7 cm, 11.25"). lxvii, [1], 382, [2] pp.
$2000.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
Sole edition: Ulfilas’s 4th-century Gothic translation of the Gospels, here printed with a Latin translation and commentary done by Erik Benzelius, Archbishop of Uppsala, the whole edited and with
a Gothic grammar by Edward Lye. Ulfilas (ca. 310–88 a.d.), an Arian bishop also known as Ulfila or Wulfila, is credited with the creation of the Gothic alphabet as well as the conversion of large numbers of Goths to Christianity. His translation of the Bible into Gothic survives in several fragments, including the Codex Argenteus, from which Benzelius made his translation.
This is a
large paper copy, in a very handsome period-style binding. The printing, as might be expected of Oxford’s Clarendon Press in this era, is elegant; good type is quite beautifully laid on the pages.
Brunet, II, 1119; Darlow & Moule 4560. Recent period-style full morocco, framed and panelled in blind rolls with blind-stamped corner fleurons, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, gilt-ruled raised bands, and gilt-stamped decorations in compartments (signed by Grace Bindings in blind at inner area of rear cover, lower turn-in). Lower margin of title-page with a defunct library’s old presentation rubber-stamp. A few instances of light foxing, most pages clean and the margins beautifully wide.
Bible. O.T. Psalms. Gaelic. 1776. Macfarlane. Sailm Dhaibhidh ann dan Gaoidhealach do reir na Heabhra, agus an eidir-theangachaidh a’s fearr ann Laidin, ann Gaoidheilg ‘s ann Gaillbhearla.... Glas-gho [Glasgow]: Clodh-bhuailt’ agus r’an Reic le Ann[a Orr, 1776]. 12mo (13.5 cm, 5.3"). 352, 67, [1 (blank)] pp.
$975.00
Click any image where the hand appears on
mouse-over, for an enlargement.
Early edition of Alexander Macfarlane’s Scots Gaelic translation of the Psalter, originally published in 1753 and here printed by a woman (Anna Orr). Macfarlane’s translation was partially based on that of the Synod of Argyle, the first done in Gaelic, but that earlier version originally contained only the first 50 psalms. The present issue includes Laoidhe eidir-theangaicht’ agus eidir-mhinicht’ o chuimh-reannaibh eagsamhail do’n Scrioptur naomhtha (i.e., Scripture songs), with a separate title-page.
Rare edition. ESTC locates only the copy at the National Library of Scotland.
ESTC T200528; not in Darlow & Moule. Period-style modern calf, framed and panelled in blind, with blind-tooled corner fleurons, spine with gilt-stamped title and gilt-stamped decorations within compartments. Title-page with lower corner repaired, with loss of letters from imprint. Pages browned and with occasional staining; some corners dog-eared. Lower corner of one leaf (Psalm 118) torn away, with loss of a few letters.
“William Tillsons Bible”
& BCP
(Bible). Church of England. Book of Common Prayer. [The book of common prayer, and administration of the sacraments, and other rites and ceremonies of the church, according to the use of the Church of England; together with the Psalter, or Psalms of David, pointed as they are to be sung or said in churches]. [Oxford: W. Jackson & A. Hamilton, 1783?]. 4to (28 cm, 11"). [52] ff. (lacking ff. [1][3]). [bound with] Bible. English. 1783. Authorized (i.e., King James Version). The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments: translated out of the original tongues: and with the former translations diligently compared and revised.... Oxford: W. Jackson & A. Hamilton, 1783. 4to (28 cm, 11"). [144] ff. (lacking final blank?). [bound with] Bible. O.T. Psalms. English.Paraphrases. 1770. Sternhold and Hopkins. The whole book of psalms, collected into English metre.... Oxford: Pr. by T. Wright & W. Gill, 1770. 4to (28 cm, 11"). [28] ff.
$800.00

Large, heavy, quarto family biblesmaller and more manageable and less expensive than the large folios intended to be used at the lectern in church, but still quite substantial. These family Bibles also could contain, as in this case, the Book of Common Prayer and the "old" version metrical psalterwith the expectation that they would serve the master of the house in leading family worship.

Provenance: "William Tillsons Bible" in manuscript above manuscript family records on the front free endpaper.
Prayer Book, Psalter: not in ESTC. Bible: not in Darlow & Moule or ESTC; Herbert 1286. Contemporary
calf, covers panelled in blind with remnants of clasps. Front joint open with cords strongly holding; covers abraded with incisions and leather loss to edges; spine leather dry and cracking; front fly-leaf detached. Lacking title-page and two preliminary leaves of Prayer Book; another early leaf detached with a closed tear across, no loss of text. Bible: scattered foxing and brown spotting, with a few closed tears and occasional chipping in the margins, resulting in loss of words from a few shouldernotes. The copy described by
Herbert had engravings and maps not present here; this copy is complete textually.
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THE
WHOLE BIBLE IN
Over
800
Beautiful Pictures
ENTIRELY ENGRAVED
Bible. German. Selections. 1787. Biblia ectypa. Bildnussen auss Heilige Schrifft dess Alt-und
Neuen Testaments...von Christoph Weigel. Augsburg, 1787. Folio. Unpaginated,
unfolioed: title-page, 100 ff.; sectional title-page, 78 ff.; sectional title-page,
37 ff.
$4850.00

CHRISTOPH WEIGEL
was the artist who executed this monumental work, being an entirely engraved
pictorial Bible illustrating hundreds of famous stories
(the creation of Heaven and Earth, the temptation of Eve, Jacob's ladder, and
so on), with other suitable images luxuriously added as well (Mark with his
lion, Paul composing his letter to the Ephesians, etc). Above
each image is its chapter source and a short descriptive Latin caption (e.g.,
"Scala coeletis a dormiente Iacovo visa"); engraved below it is a longer quotation
from the German Bible. In total, Weigel's volume contains three engraved title-pages
and 839 engraved illustrations: 11 are full-page, 12 are one-third-page, 816
are one-quarter-page, all are extremely well done.
This
is not what one typically thinks of, as an “illustrated Bible”; that is,
it is not “embellished text” it is, rather, the whole Bible IN pictures.
The book first appeared in the late 17th century, and while it may well
have been reprinted more than once, neither NUC nor RLIN shows any
edition other than one of 1695. Moreover, apparently the 1695 copy that appears
in
both those bibliographical sources is the same incomplete one.
This
magnificent collection of engravings is clearly rare.


Contemporary boards, covered in a stone-pattern paper in
tones of brown and black; one joint repaired. Boards bumped and abraded,
especially
along edges and with loss of paper at corners. Internally a good copy with
relatively light foxing and only occasional stains, virtually all in margins:
Weigel's images are remarkably clean.
A
joy and a wonder.
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