"OF CARDINAL IMPORTANCE FOR ITS INFLUENCE ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND THOUGHT": LATE 16TH-CENTURY GENEVA BIBLE
BIBLE. The Bible, Translated according to the Ebrew and Greeke… BOUND WITH: The Book of Common Prayer, with the Psalter… BOUND WITH: The Whole Book of Psalmes. Collected into English meetre, by Thomas Sternhold, John Hopkins, and others… with apt Notes to sing them withall. London: Deputies of Christopher Barker (Bible and Book of Common Prayer), Richard Daye (Whole Book of Psalmes), 1592. Thick octavo, contemporary full dark brown calf rebacked with original spine laid down, ornamental gilt-stamped boards and spine, brass catches and remnant of leather strap. Housed in a custom clamshell box.
Late 16th-century Geneva Bible, with beautiful, ornate woodcut title pages, in contemporary calf gilt.
Upon Queen Mary's accession in 1553, "publication of the English Bible ceased in England. Many Protestants who fled to the Continent were attracted to Calvin's Geneva. Among these exiles were eminent English Bible scholars who began work on a new translation" (Bible 100 Landmarks 62). First published in 1560, and often called the "Breeches Bible" for its rendering of Genesis 3:7—"they sewed fig tree leaves together, and made themselves breeches"— the Geneva Bible was "more scholarly than any previous translation… [It] achieved immediate popularity and exerted an extremely powerful influence… The Geneva Version included prefaces… and tables; and for the first time in an English Bible the verses were divided and numbered… It has been more properly called the Elizabethan family Bible, since it was this version which was the first to enter the English home" (PMM 83). "It became the textus receptus for the Puritan element in England. It was read by Shakespeare, Bunyan and the soldiers of the Civil War, and is thus of cardinal importance for its influence on the English language, literature and thought" (Great Books and Book Collectors, 105-8). Set in double columns of Gothic type. With decorative woodcut general title page featuring royal arms and separate New Testament woodcut title page, also dated 1592; woodcut tailpieces. Includes Apocrypha. Bound with 1592 editions of the Book of Common Prayer and Sternhold and Hopkins' metrical psalter. Prayer book title page printed in red and black. Darlow & Moule 162. Herbert 211. Griffiths 1592:2. Early owner inscriptions in ink and pencil, scattered annotations and marginalia.
Book of Common Prayer with faint marginal dampstaining; mild restoration to title page and first few leaves. Bible with mild loss to corners of a few leaves, barely affecting text. Without leather straps, brass catches present. An excellent Bible in handsome contemporary full calf.