"THE KING JAMES VERSION IS THE BIBLE OF THE HEART": 1760 JOSEPH BENTHAM EDITION OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE, IN EIGHT VOLUMES

BIBLE. The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament and the New… Cambridge: Joseph Bentham, 1760. Eight volumes. Octavo, contemporary half vellum, raised bands, ink manuscript titles to spines, marbled boards. Housed together in a custom clamshell box. $4500.

1760 Joseph Bentham edition of the venerable King James Bible, eight volumes in lovely contemporary vellum and marbled boards.

First published in 1611, the King James Version of the Bible has exercised an incalculable impact on piety, language and literature throughout the English-speaking world. Macaulay praised it as "a book, which if everything else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power" (PMM 114). "Other translations may engage the mind, but the King James Version is the Bible of the heart" (Campbell, 275). Just two years after Joseph Bentham published this present copy, his Bible of 1762 was marked the "standard edition," according to Darlow & Moule. With the price of 6s. printed on the title page, and with the Apocrypha. According to Herbert there is another state priced at 4s. and without the Apocrypha. It is possible that they sold the leaves with and without the Apocrypha, accounting for the difference in price. Thirty-one leaves from the Apocrypha (+E4 through +I2) are misbound into Volume IV; in their correct place are bound two blank leaves. With separate title pages for the Old and New Testaments; with a chart page after the Old Testament and after the New Testament. Darlow & Moule 848. Herbert 1131. Early owner's engraved armorial bookplate and ink signature, dated 1770, on front pastedown of each volume. Title pages with old ink annotations in a neat hand to upper margins.

Minor staining and wrinkling to lower margin of signature Iii, text generally quite clean and fine, boards a bit rubbed, contemporary vellum spines quite lovely. Near-fine condition.