
ANTIQUARIAN
BIBLES 
I: ENGLISH-LANGUAGE
BIBLES, TESTAMENTS, & “PARTS”
II: POLYGLOTS & ANCIENT
LANGUAGES | III: NATIVE
AMERICAN LANGUAGES
IV: MODERN LANGUAGES NOT ENGLISH
OR “AMERIND”
V: BIBLE STUDY AIDS, COMMENTARY, & “RELATED”
 |
MODERN LANGUAGES NOT ENGLISH OR “AMERIND”
AMERICAN IMPRINTS INCLUDED A CATALOGUE
ORDERED BY DATE
|
Early
Russian Bible Society Edition
Bible. Church Slavonic. 1816. Biblia ili Knigi sveshtennago pisanie vetkhago i novago zaveta. [St. Petersburg: Russian Bible Society, 1816]. 8vo (23.5 cm, 9.25"). [4], 1012, [2], 252 pp.
$2000.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
One of the first combined editions of the Old and New Testaments in Slavonic printed by the Russian Bible Society under the direction of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Russian (or St. Petersburg) Bible Society was founded in 1813 by order of Tsar Alexander I — and then suppressed by Tsar Nicholas I in 1826, but not before publishing “at Moscow and St. Petersburg editions of the Bible and New Testament in Slavonic and Russian amounting to over 500,000 copies” (Darlow & Moule). The complete Scriptures did not appear in modern Russian vernacular until 1876.
Darlow & Moule 8382. Modern oxblood velvet–covered boards, unadorned; showing virtually no wear and housed in a plain box. Title-page with fountain pen inscription in upper portion (in Cyrillic except for “Kingston R.I. U.S.A.”) and inked owner's name in lower portion. Several contemporary silk bookmarks laid in. First three leaves with inner margins reinforced, one leaf with outer margin and one with lower margin reinforced. Light foxing; a number of pages with pencilled numerals in margins. (24138)

A
Very Typical-Looking
German
American TESTAMENT
Billmeyer
1822
Bible.
N.T. German. 1822. Luther.
Das Neue Testament.... Germantaun: Michael Billmeyer, 1822. 8vo. 537, [1] pp.,
[1] f.
$115.00
The ninth Billmeyer printing of the German New Testament and the only German NT or Bible printed this year.
O'Callaghan 161; Shoemaker 8025; German Language Printing in the United States 2535. Contemporary calf, raised bands, covers blind-framed; a few chips and old abrasions, but pleasant. Lower clasp intact, top one missing. Front hinge open, joint starting; front free endpaper torn across with loss. German fly-leaf inscription. Usual foxing/staining only, and complete.

An
Early
ABS
Spanish New
Testament
Bible.
N.T. Spanish. 1823. Scio de
S. Miguel.El Nuevo Testamento de nuestro señor Jesu
Cristo, traducido de la Biblia Vulgata Latina.... Nueva York:
Estereotipa por Elihu White a costa de la Sociedad Americana de
la Biblia, 1823. 12mo (18 cm, 7"). 376
pp.
$600.00
This is an early reprint (the 7th edition, the 5th through 9th editions all appearing in 1823) of the 1819 edition of the New Testament in Spanish published by the American Bible Society, which was the first printing in Spanish of any portion of the Bible in the New World. To avoid controversy, and to appeal to Catholics, a translation approved for use in the Catholic Church was employed. This resulted in some criticism from the ABS's Protestant base, but proved a successful strategy to get the Scriptures into the hands of Spanish speakers in the newly independent nations south of the U.S.
Provenance: Late-20th-century booklabel of Michael Zinman on front pastedown.
Darlow & Moule 8495; Shoemaker 11841; not in O'Callaghan. Contemporary sheep; spine with gilt rules and a black leather title label, gilt-lettered. Some rubbing and abrasions; spine leather dry with fine cracks, top of front joint opening. Pages with scattered foxing and browning; in a few places chipping in the margins, not affecting texttypical degrees of this only. Paper label probably from a lending library, affixed to front pastedown; pencilled notes, including ownership inscriptions, on endpapers. All edges speckled red.
Bible.
N.T. French. 1824. Ostervald. Le
nouveau testament de notre seigneur Jésus-Christ... seconde édition
Américaine. Boston: J.H.A. Frost, 1824. 12mo (18.2 cm, 7.1"). 379, [5 (1
blank)] pp.
$600.00

Early American edition of the translation by eminent Swiss Protestant
Jean Frédéric Ostervald, based on a Paris edition and following
1811 and 1814 U.S. printings. Likely intended for use among French Canadians
and French émigrés in the United States, this is a good
example of an early American printing of a complete Testament, either Old or
New, in French.
Shoemaker 15382. Contemporary speckled sheep, worn and abraded,
spine with gilt-stamped leather title label. Front pastedown with early numerical
inscription. Outer margins of last few leaves waterstained; some pages with
mild cockling or light spotting, others with varying degrees of age-toning.
Bible. N.T. Dutch. Verhulst. 1825. Het Nieuwe Testament van onzen heere Jesus Christus, vertaelt volgens de gemeyne Latynsche overzettinge ... Brussel: J.-B. Dupon, 1825. 12mo (17.2 cm, 6.75"). [6], 568 pp.
$400.00
Reprinting of Verhulst’s Old Catholic edition of 1717, circulated by the British and Foreign Bible Society. The work is printed in double columns with typographic head- and tailpieces.
Darlow and Moule 3369. Contemporary diced calf, spine tooled in blind, with gilt-stamped leather title-label; edges and joints rubbed, sides with minor abrasions, spine sunned. Front pastedown with traces of a now-absent bookplate. Some light foxing, mostly confined to first few leaves. Pp. 5/6 and 7/8 bound in out of order. One leaf with short tear from upper margin, touching a few letters; one leaf with upper outer corner torn away, with loss of two letters. All edges marbled.
Bible. N.T. German. 1825. Luther. Das Neue Testament unsers Herrn und Heilandes Jesu Christi, nach der deutschen Uebersetzung von Dr. Martin Luther.... Carlisle (Pa.): Gedruckt und zu haben bey Moser & Peters, 1825. 8vo. (17 cm, 6.75"). 511, [1] pp., [2] ff. (lacking pp. 101–104); 12 plts.
$200.00
Stereotyped edition with 12 woodcut plates, and the fifth printing (but second edition) of the German New Testament by Johann B. Moser and Gustav Sigmund Peters of Carlisle, Pa.
Provenance: 20th-century booklabel of Michael Zinman on front pastedown, along with pencilled ownership inscription of Margaret Lache.
Not in O’Callaghan; not in Darlow & Moule; Arndt, The First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America, 2724; Shoemaker 19698. Contemporary calf with raised bands; remnants of clasps. Calf scratched with some rubbing; spine a little warped. Some dog-earing and shallow tattering; lightly to moderately age-spotted throughout; pp. 17–18, 257-60 detached. No loss or obscuring of text due to the above, but two pages in Mark, pp. 101–104, lacking.
Bible. German. 1829–34? Luther. Biblia, das ist: Die ganze Heilige Schrift des Alten und Neuen Testaments, nach der deutschen Uebersetzung D. Martin Luthers.... Philadelphia: Kimber & Sharpless, [ca. 1829–34?]. 4to (28.5 cm, 11.125"). Frontis., 975 pp.; 39 plts.; [2] ff. “Familien=Register” inserted between pp. 754 & [755].
$500.00
Kimber and Sharpless issued a number of German Bibles between 1827 and 1851. Only three have 975 pages: this undated edition, one edition dated 1830, and another dated 1833. This Bible, printed in fraktur, has a total of 40 plates (including the frontispiece), ten of which are wood engravings signed by Alexander Anderson—the remainder are copper engravings, of which three are maps (unsigned), one is by C. Tiebout, and one, of Mary and child, is by T. Gimbrede after Hans Holbein. Between the Testaments two leaves of family records, unused, have been bound in.
Binding: Contemporary treed calf with clusters of small bosses in center and at corners of covers; red leather label on spine, gilt-filletted and -rolled above and below and gilt-lettered; remnants of clasps on edges of covers. All edges saffron.
Provenance: Rubber-stamp of Lee D. Snyder on front pastedown, verso of title-leaf, and reverse of many plates.
Cf. O’Callaghan 181; not in Darlow & Moule. Binding as above with some scratches; joints and edges rubbed. Small holes or chips out of a few pages with loss of individual letters, not affecting sense. Small hole in printed area of plate facing p. 119. Foxed with some soiling on the sectional title-page of the New Testament and a few darker spots elsewhere. A good, solid, satisfying copy.

Luke in Urdu — Arabic Character — Mission Press
Bible. N.T. Luke. Urdu. 1839. Cover title: [one line in Arabic characters, then] Gospel of Luke in Hindustáni. Calcutta: Pr. by the Baptist Mission Press, for the English Baptist Missionary Society, and the American Foreign Bible Society, 1839. 12mo. [100] pp.
$450.00
Stand-alone edition of the Gospel of Luke in the Urdu language, translated mainly by William Yates, a Baptist missionary stationed in India. He based his translation on Henry Martyn's version, the first complete New Testament in Urdu, which was first published in 1810. The Baptist Mission Press also printed a complete New Testament and separate editions of the Gospels and Acts, that same year.
The text is solely in the Urdu language and is printed in Arabic characters.
Rare. Not located via OCLC.
Click the images for enlargements.
Darlow & Moule 5285 (see note). Publisher's quarter cloth with paper-covered light boards. Front cover with printed paper title-label, institutional bookplates above and below this (one partially removed), and paper shelf label; library call number blacked out on back cover. Cloth splitting at head and a couple of other places. First leaf chipped at outer margin with paper loss; two shallow tears extend from outer edge, touching a few words but not costing text. Second and third leaves with shallow chipping at lower outer corners. Final leaf with shallow tears, extending from outer edge and touching just one word of text. A clean copy. (24576)
In
a GOOD American
Binding Sarah
Leverett's FRENCH
Bible
Bible.
French. 1839–40. Martin. La Sainte Bible...revue...par David Martin....
New York: Stéréotypé par Henry W. Rees, pour la Société
Biblique Americaine, D. Fanshaw, Imprimeur, 1839–40. 8vo. 819 [1 (blank)] pp.,
261, [1 (blank)] pp.
$525.00
Only the second edition in the U.S. of the Martin edition of the French Bible. (Prior to 1835, the American Bible Society favored using the text of the 1805 French Bible.) This copy is exquisitely bound in full black leather in good imitation of morocco, elaborately stamped in gold on the covers forming a five-element frame or border, with gilt tooling on the board edges and with gilt inner dentelles. The spine has slightly raised bands and elaborate gold stamping in its compartments.
The name "Sarah B. Leverett" is lettered in gilt on the front cover, and the same name is given in precise gothic calligraphy on the front free endpaper.
This is the second copy of this Bible that we have had and we are convinced that this is a publisher's deluxe leather binding. A choice of colors was apparently available, for the other copy we had was of an olive-green color.
Not in O'Callaghan; not in Darlow & Moule. Bound as above, corners a little bumped with a bit of long ago refurbishing thereto, dulling outermost elements of gilt border (only) on front cover, just at those corners. Faint waterstaining in lower inside area for the first few pages (only). The whole very attractive and well preserved.
Calcutta
Baptist
Mission
Press
Bible.
O.T. Psalms. Bengali. 1844.; Bible. O.T. Proverbs. Bengali. 1844.
[four lines in Bengali, then] The Psalms of David and the Proverbs
of Solomon in Bengálí. Calcutta: Pr. for the Bible Translation
Society and the American and Foreign Bible Society, at the Baptist Mission Press,
1844. 12mo (16.3 cm; 6.5"). 178, 53, [1 (blank)] pp.
$475.00
Other than the title-page in Bengali and English, the entire work is in Bengali. “Second
edition” is declared on the title-page with an additional edition statement on verso of same; this edition
consists of 1000 copies, while the first was issued in only 500 and immediately exhausted.
“Translated from the original Hebrew by the Calcutta Baptist Missionaries” — though just which of
the Baptist missionaries translated this edition is unclear.
Click the images for enlargements.
Publisher's purple cloth with faded printed paper spine label. Ex-library: call number on spine,
bookplate removed, pencilled notations, rubber-stamps. Withal, a clean crisp copy.
(21736)
An
ABS Offering in
Portuguese
Bible.
N.T. Portuguese. 1848. Alameida.
O Novo Testamento de nosso senhor e redemptor Jesu Christo, traduzido em Portuguez
pelo Padre Joao Ferreira A. D'Alameida, ministro pregador do santo evangelho
em Batavia. Reimpreso da edicao de 1693, revista e emendada. Nova York: Sociedade
Americana da Biblia, 1848. 12mo (19.2 cm, 7.625"). 283, [1 (blank)] pp. (lacking
pp. 26768).
$500.00
Protestant Portuguese New Testament. The American Bible Society
published both Catholic and Protestant versions of the New Testament; this translation
was done in the 17th century by João Ferreira de Alameida (162891),
a Protestant minister in Dutch Batavia, for the Portuguese in Southeast Asia.
"As early as 1823 the A.B.S. had obtained from the B[ritish and] F[oreign] B[ible]
S[ociety] a supply of 100 copies of the Bible and 200 copies of the N.T. for
circulation in the Cape Verde Islands. In 1839 it published at New York two
editions of the N.T. in Portuguese," this version and a Catholic one (Darlow
& Moule). This is apparently only the second A.B.S. edition.
Provenance:
Late-20th-century bookplate of Michael Zinman on front pastedown.
Not in Darlow & Moule; not in O'Callaghan. Contemporary
speckled sheep; spine with double gilt rules and a black leather title label,
gilt-lettered. Rubbed, label chipped at edges, front joint opening at top.
Scattered foxing; one leaf lacking, in the Apocalypse of St. John. All edges
speckled brown.

For
German
Catholic Americans
1850
Bible. German. 1850. Allioli. Die Heilige Schrift uebersetzt aus dem Lateinischen Urtext. Mit der Genehmigung des Rt. Revd Dr. Hughes Bischof von New York. [New York: D & J. Sadlier, 1850]. Folio ( 27.6 cm, 10.875"). Frontis., engr. t.-p., 891, [1 (blank)] pp., [2 (blank)], [2 (Familien Register)] ff., 268 pp., [1], [1 (blank)] ff.; 13 plts.
$1750.00
A very early American German-language Catholic Bible (we trace only one earlier, in 1846). The translation is that of Joseph Franz von Allioli (1793–1873), who was a Catholic priest and Dean of Augsburg, a professor at Landshut and Munich before a weak throat obliged him to abandon teaching. His translation of the entire Bible into German earned him a papal commendation in 1830, and the translation itself remained the most widely used German Catholic version for a century.
The frontispiece shows the judgement of Solomon, and the engraved title-page has an engraving of John the Baptist, a popular saint among German Catholics. The remaining plates are very attractively done, especially that of the crucifixion, which stands before the sectional title of the New Testament.
Provenance: Late 20th-century
booklabel of Michael Zinman on the front pastedown, over the inscription "Nathan
Zwayer his Bible, 1852."
Not in Darlow & Moule; not in O’Callahan; Wright, Early Bibles of America, 164–65. On Allioli, see: New Catholic Encyclopedia, I, 325–26. Textured roan, elaborately blind stamped; abraded and cracked. Pages and plates foxed with occasional waterstaining and small tears in the margins. Still imposing.

A
Scarce Testament
in a
Pacific
Language
Bible.
N.T. Maori. 1852. Ko te
Kawenata Hou o to tatou ariki te kai whakaora a Ihu Karaiti.... [Tr. by W. Yate].
Ranana: He mea to ite perehi o T.R. Harihona.... [i.e., London: Pr. by T.R.
Harrison...], 1852. 12mo. [2] ff., 371 pp.
$325.00
A later edition of W. Yate's translation of the New Testament into Maori, New Zealand's native language, the first edition having appeared in 1837. This edition was revised by W. Williams. All editions are scarce.
Darlow & Moule 6650. Recent quarter tan calf with marbled paper sides. Rodent has nibbled on the upper outer corner of the first 15 leaves with some loss of paper and of a very few page numbers; no text affected. A clean copy.
Bible. N.T. French. [1861]. Glaire. Le nouveau testament selon la vulgate,
traduit en français, avec des notes, par l’Abbé J.-B. Glaire....édition
de luxe. Paris: Librairie de Firmin Didot Frères, fils, et cie, [1861].
4to (28 cm, 11"). xxx, [2], 546, [2], 73, [3] pp.; illus.
[SOLD]
Jean-Baptiste Glaire’s French translation of the Catholic
New Testament, noted for its literal approach, here in a lavishly illustrated
edition contained in a beautiful luxury binding. Almost every text page is contained
within an elaborate border, and numerous full-page engravings by Ferrari and
others are present.
Binding: Red pebbled cloth, covers
framed in triple gilt fillets with elaborate gilt dentelle rolls within. Front
cover with central gilt-stamped S; spine with raised bands, compartments framed
in gilt fillets. All edges gilt.
Binding as above, moderately worn over joints and extremities;
spine with chip at top and over one band. Some minor foxing.
Scripture Selections TAMIL
Bible. Selections. Tamil. 1865. A selection of scripture texts. Madras: Religious Tract and Book Society, printed at the American Mission Press, 1865. 12mo (13.5 cm; 5.5"). 36 pp.
$80.00
Each selection carefully identified as to book, chapter, and verse. Entirely in Tamil. In Madras Religious Tract and Book Society's "General Series" as its publication number 22.
Front wrapper present, lacking rear one; removed from a bound volume. (15152)
Bible. O.T. Psalms. Scots. Waddell. 1871. The Psalms: Frae Hebrew intil Scottis. Edinburgh: J. Menzies & Co.; Glasgow: T. & J. Lochhead and Wm. Love, 1871. 4to (21.7 cm, 8.5"). [2], 2, 105, [1] pp.; illus.
$250.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
First edition: The first translation of the Psalms into Scots dialect. This translation was done by Peter Hately Waddell, who in 1867 edited the Life and Works of Robert Burns. The work is illustrated with a map of the territories of the tribes of Israel, and with reproductions of an 18th-century depiction of David and of another Biblically themed woodcut.
A publisher’s advertisement for a later printing is laid in.
Publisher’s cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped title; cloth faded along edges and spine. Front hinge (inside) slightly tender. Pages faintly age-toned; in fact, a very clean nice copy.

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