VERY FINELY BOUND 1813 QUARTO EDITION OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE, TWO VOLUMES IN ELEGANT CONTEMPORARY MOROCCO-GILT

BIBLE. The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments… London: Printed for George Eyre and Andrew Strahan, 1813. Two volumes. Quarto (10 by 12-1/2 inches), contemporary full paneled crimson straight-grain morocco gilt, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, raised bands, all edges gilt. $5500.

Distinguished 1813 quarto edition of the magisterial King James Bible, beautifully bound as two volumes in contemporary full straight-grain morocco-gilt.

First published in 1611 and indisputably the most influential of English Bible translations, the King James Version has exercised incalculable influence on piety, language and literature. This impressive quarto edition reprints Eyre and Strahan's quarto edition of seven years earlier. "The General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America recommended that this should be adopted as its standard edition"—despite the fact that its text "is very far from faultless": for instance, Ephesians 4:16 reads "holy body" as opposed to the correct reading of "whole body" (Darlow & Moule 1035). Originally issued as one volume; this copy divided into two at leaf [4M4], the first chapter of Jeremiah. Separate New Testament title page. With Apocrypha. Herbert 1580. Armorial bookplate. Calligraphic contemporary owner inscriptions; family record in first volume.

A beautiful Bible in very good condition.