TWO-VOLUME QUARTO CAMBRIDGE KING JAMES BIBLE, 1768, BEAUTIFULLY BOUND

(BIBLE). The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments. Cambridge: John Archdeacon, 1768. Two volumes. Tall quarto, contemporary full red morocco, raised bands, elaborately gilt-decorated spines and boards, black morocco labels on spines and front boards, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. $8800.

Richly bound Cambridge King James Bible, illustrated with copper-engraved frontispiece by Francis Hayman, “the most proficient English illustrator of his time” (Ray, 5). Beautifully bound in contemporary full red morocco gilt.

The King James Bible, first published in 1611, is described as "the only literary masterpiece ever to be produced by a committee and was the work of nearly fifty translators… [who] lived at a period when the genius of the language was in full flower… [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). This 18th-century edition, with Apocrypha, contains a chronological Index and Tables, with a separate title page for the New Testament. Darlow & Moule 881. This copy was bound for the Liverpool merchant John Sparling (1731-1800). Sparling had interests in privateering and land speculation and served as the Mayor of Liverpool; he was also a trader of enslaved persons. Both volumes are lettered in gilt on the front cover "John Sparling, Esqr." with black morocco labels lettered "St. Domingo House, 1790. Lancashire." The first volume records a brief family genealogy to 1815 on the verso of the front free endpaper, and the second bears the armorial bookplate of his son, William Sparling (1777-1870). William was infamous for his involvement in the murder of Edward Grayson, a ship builder, in a dual in 1804. The subsequent trial attracted much public attention and was recorded in The Trial at Large of William Sparling and Samuel Martin Colquitt (1804). St. Domingo House was first built in the 1750s by George Campbell (d. 1769). Like Sparling, Campbell was a trader of enslaved persons and named the property after his capture of a ship near the island of St. Domingo in the Caribbean. Sparling purchased the property in 1773.

Faint marginal dampstaining along top edge to some leaves in Volume I; contemporary binding with light edge-wear, stains to front boards of Volume II. A beautiful pair of volumes.