As Darlow and Moule comment, “by printing the Rheims Testament in full, side by side with the Bishops' version, [Fulke] secured for the former a publicity which it would not otherwise have obtained, and was indirectly responsible for the marked influence which Rheims exerted on the Bible of 1611.” Alan Thomas elaborates by observing that “many a dignified or felicitous phrase was silently lifted by the editors of King James's Version, and thus passed into the language” (Great Books and Book Collectors, p. 108).

Provenance:  Signature of a contemporary owner “A. Thorpe, York,” undated, on A2.

•  STC 2900; Darlow & Moule 265; Herbert 265; ESTC S115769.   Modern black calf, covers framed with single gilt rule and paneled in gilt rolls with corner fleurons. Title-page mounted, with outer edge and small hole in lower margin reinforced; dust-soiled. A2 with early inked ownership signature (see above) and notation; reinforced at hinge (inside). Other markings: two pages with marginal notations and four pages with corrections, both inked by an early hand. Bug-spotting on several preliminary leaves. Light waterstaining on some early and later leaves, with occasional odd stains and spots elsewhere, not impairing sense of text. Dust-soiling on index pages. Two preliminary leaves missing small pieces of paper in blank margins; small hole at top outer corner of Kkkk4; and small chip at top edge of Hhhh2. Fold-mark at top outer corner of Vvv2. In fact, a very nice copy of an important book.  (24477)

The engraved title-page is very fine, with Moses and Aaron flanking the title, the British royal arms above, and a scene of London below. The rest of the plates are all maps, as would not be the case in an Anglican Bible: These are all double-page, full of detail, and very attractive. The first, a map of the world, is labelled in Latin and Italian, and the rest in Dutch.

•  Herbert 743; Wing (rev.) B2310. Contemporary diced calf, rebacked; one joint again open and the other open, but cords holding. Covers ruled with single gilt fillets, edges with single gilt rolls. Spine compartments ornately gilt. Covers stained and with abrasions and some loss of leather, especially over corners; spine dry and rubbed, with loss of leather and gilt. All edges speckled red. Scattered spots of light soiling and staining, especially in the margins. Entirely untattered.

•  ESTC T117664. Contemporary speckled calf, covers separated; front cover sometime (home?)-stitched to spine and holding, back one once (later) held on by paper laid over spine and a portion of both covers, paper now considerably chipped away. Lacking endpapers; front pastedown with library bookplate, back pastedown with doodles. Pages age-toned, with some minor foxing.

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.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 19538.   Good. Removed from a nonce volume. Lightly browned with worming to title-page, touching, but not obscuring, letters. (1170)

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

Arndt and Eck cite Bender, who says “This first American Mennonite Hymnbook is not to be confused with one of similar title printed by Saur at Germantown in 1753, called erroneously by Seidensticker and Flory a Mennonite hymnbook.” Each portion of this item has a separate title-page, with the second section's title-page reading Sammlung altre und neuer Geistreichen Gesänge.

•  Arndt & Eck 2419; Shoemaker 2239.   Contemporary sheep, clasps; later spine labels; leather dry and abraded with significant patch missing from top of spine; cracked along joints and down the spine (this is not quite “about to break” but one can see that as possible “out there,” so it is “priced accordingly.”)  Pages clean, with just the usual foxing on early and later leaves including title-page.  (21769)

•  Hills 618; O’Callaghan 189. Contemporary plain calf, spine with raised bands, gilt-ruled above and below and with gilt-lettered title in second compartment; gilt a little rubbed. Hinges (inside) repaired with paper. Shallow chipping and tattering, and many dog ears; tears mostly in the margins of pages and plates, but a few closed tears into text, on pp. 283–84 with loss of individual letters but not of sense; tattering on last leaf just touching text, leaf repaired with cellophane on verso; tissue repairs on pp. 273–74 and on the reverse of the frontispiece. Moderately foxed throughout; lacking pp. 765–68 of supplementary material (only). Pp. 618–19 are here misprinted in place of pp. 622–23—all text being present, if out of order! This significant Bible is here in a trim, neat contemporary binding.

The New York printing firm of M'Elrath, Bangs & Herbert is very interesting. Its principal Samuel Bangs was in the city (and with those partners) only for a short period, after his disastrous experience with the Mina Expedition and prior to moving to Texas permanently and becoming its first printer.

•  Mark: Darlow & Moule 6800; Newberry Library, Indian Linguistics in the Edward E. Ayer Collection, Mohawk 4; Pilling, Proof-Sheets of a Bibliography of the Languages of the North American Indians, 439. On Sam Bangs in the printing firm of M'Elrath, Bangs & Herbert, see: Spell, Pioneer Printer, p. 63–64. Recent quarter cloth shelfback with blue-green paper sides in the style of American bindings of the period. Small pressure-stamp of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, and with two different copies of its library regulations laid in. A very good copy of an uncommon indigenous-language item.

Click the images for enlargements.

Binding:  Contemporary embossed rich cordovan-colored morocco cathedral binding featuring inter alii the Holy Ghost (in Pentacostal dove–form), the Agnus Dei, and stained/leaded glass “windows” both pointed and rosette. Spine additionally with gilt-stamped title; turn-ins with blind-roll design. All edges brightly gilt.

•  Not in Herbert.   Binding as above, in beautiful condition. First front fly-leaf with early inked familial gift inscription (including an explanation of one brother's having opted out of the group present!); second front fly-leaf with inked dedicatory poem.  (22266)

The text is solely in Bengali, translated from the original Greek by William Yates (1792–1845), “a Baptist missionary, stationed first at Serampore, and afterwards at Calcutta, where he devoted his remarkable gifts to translation-work, besides being closely connected with the Baptist Mission Press (cf. D. & M., note on no. 2060).”

Rare.  Darlow & Moule call for 40 pages, and no issue has been found with 51 pp. as here. Not located via OCLC.

•  Darlow & Moule 2061.   Publisher's quarter cloth with paper-covered light boards; slightly cockled; library call number blacked out on front; front cover with printed paper title-label. A bit of cloth lost over spine, with front joint opening at top and bottom though covers remain firmly attached. Institutional bookplates and five-digit number rubber-stamped on front pastedown; magnetic security strip at inner margin of one page. One tear each to first (blank) leaf, and second and third leaves, touching but not costing one word on each page. Fourth leaf with two tears, touching (but not costing) four words on each page. Fifth leaf with tears in outer margin. A clean copy. Nice.  (24575)

Binding: Contemporary red straight-grain morocco, covers framed in gilt roll, spine with gilt-stamped title and compartment decorations.

Provenance: Ownership initials of William R. Whittingham (G.R.W., the "William" being rendered as "Guillelmus" for his love of Latin), fourth Episcopal Bishop of Baltimore; stamp of an Episcopal Diocesan lending library.

•  Front joint almost entirely broken, back joint starting from top, head of spine chipped, with binding showing minor darkening and scuffing overall. Free endpapers excised. Front pastedown with rubber-stamp as above (no other institutional markings); first text page with inked ownership inscription as above dated [18]64. Title-page of first work lacking. Pages slightly age-toned, some creased; one leaf with lower outer corner torn away. Small emphasis marks to index of Hymns, with an additional manuscript entry in the table of first lines.

•  Darlow & Moule 7995; Graesse 494; NSTC 2B24457.   Publisher's violet cloth, spine with printed paper label; binding faded, cloth partially split along joints, spine sunned, head of spine reinforced with paper, spine with shelving label and lined-through call number. Front pastedown with bookplate of the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York, back pastedown with institutional bookplate. Pages clean; a sound copy. (20676)

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)

Binding: Pebbled black leather sumptuously gilt: The covers tooled with a design composed of a base and pavilion formed of foliated C and S curve volutes enclosing fine foliated strapwork. Ornate columns support the pavilion, which encloses a shell. From the base hang a pair of acroteria, and the base supports a vase of flowers on a rocaille. Board edges gilt-rolled; gilt inner dentelles. Spine divided into compartments by narrow raised bands: Each compartment with a frame of treble fillets, within the second compartment the title gilt-lettered, the remaining compartments ornamented within by fine foliated filigree. All edges gilt.

Provenance: Presentation copy to Harriet E. Henderson with her name in gilt centered on the front cover.

•  Not in Hills; not in Herbert; not in O'Callaghan. Binding as above with a few barely noticeable small abrasions. A few spots of light staining on some pages. As nice an example of this kind of Bible "production" as you are ever going to find.

•  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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Opposite the main title-page is an added one, reading: The Holy Gospels. Translated from the authorized English version into the Iroquois Indian dialect, under the supervision of the Montreal auxiliary to the British and Foreign Bible Society. Other than the added title-page, the entire work is in Iroquois.

•  Pilling, Iroquoian, 131–132; Darlow & Moule 5568; Newberry Library, Ayer Collection, Mohawk-2; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 2838.   Publisher's black cloth, stamped and lettered in blind; this is very handsome but refuses to photograph well! Offset discoloration on the endpapers. An extremely nice, precious little–used copy.  (25004)

The gospels of Luke and John are in Sangir (a.k.a. Sangihe, a.k.a. Sangirese: Siau), an Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia and the Philippines, and despite the initial large printing, this publication of Luke and John is uncommon. We find only one copy reported in U.S. libraries.

•  Darlow & Moule 7976.   Publisher's black roan in imitation of straight-grain morocco, contents in gilt on front cover. Leather worn at edges and chipped from spine with some small loss; front joint (outside) starting and volume fragile. Internally very good. Now housed in a simple, acid-free phase box.  (25032)

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

Choctaw is a Muskhogean language whose speakers were originally from the Southeastern United States (Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana), but were, like the Cherokee, forcibly moved to lands west of the Mississippi.

•  Not in Newberry Library, Ayer Collection. Book of a Thousand Tongues (2nd ed.) 265.   Publisher's black cloth over light boards; all edges red. A very good copy of a fragile book.  (25013)