"THE HIGHEST POINT IN ENGLISH BIBLE PRINTING": BASKERVILLE'S MASTERPIECE, THE MAGNIFICENT 1763 FOLIO BIBLE, EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT FOLIO ENGRAVINGS, IN A STRIKING CONTEMPORARY BINDING

(BIBLE). The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament and the New. Cambridge: John Baskerville, 1763. Large, thick folio (13 by 19-1/2 inches),contemporary full diced brown morocco gilt rebacked with original elaborately gilt-decorated spine laid down, raised bands, green morocco spine label, green morocco onlays to boards, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. $20,000.

First Baskerville edition, one of only 1250 copies, this copy extra-illustrated with eight plates from the 1769 Baskerville edition, in a striking contemporary binding with green morocco onlays to the boards.

"This edition 'has always been regarded as Baskerville's magnum opus and is his most magnificent as well as his most characteristic specimen" (Herbert 1146). "His most ambitious undertaking… widely acclaimed as his masterpiece" (Art of the Printed Book, 26). "Aesthetically, the highest point in English Bible printing so far was John Baskerville's folio printed at Cambridge in 1763… The Bible uses his types, paper and ink, and shows his characteristic 'machine-made' finish: very smooth and even in color and impression, with glossy black ink on smooth paper. The design is traditional, but the quality of material and workmanship is so high, and the conventions are so delicately modified and consistently applied that the result is extremely impressive" (Cambridge History of the Bible, 464). Beautifully printed in two columns of large type. With Apocrypha. List of subscribers present, in third state. According to Gaskell, of the 1250 copies of this edition, "556 were remaindered in 1768 and bought by the London bookseller R. Baldwin." It is likely that it is Baldwin who added the extra illustrations from the 1769 Baskerville edition to this copy. Additionally, there is one cut-down engraving from the 1772 Baskerville edition that has been laid in. Gaskell 26. Darlow & Moule 857. Herbert 1146. Huntington Library, Great Books in Great Editions 6. 18th-century armorial bookplate of Dr. Fielding Best Fynney.

Plates and text crisp with occasional instances of very faint marginal dampstaining, tiny repair to top left corner of title page. Expert restoration to extremities and corners of binding. A stunning copy of a famously beautiful Bible.