“IF EVERYTHING ELSE IN OUR LANGUAGE SHOULD PERISH, IT WOULD ALONE SUFFICE…”: 1792 CAMBRIDGE KING JAMES BIBLE, HANDSOMELY BOUND
BIBLE. The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament and the New… Cambridge: J. Archdeacon, 1792. Two volumes. 12mo, contemporary full straight-grain red morocco gilt boards with green morocco inlays rebacked with original gilt spines and brown morocco spine labels laid down, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt.
Handsomely bound 1792 Cambridge edition of the venerable King James Bible, “the most celebrated book in the English-speaking world” (Campbell, 1).
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. 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). Separate New Testament title page, also dated 1792. With Apocrypha. Lengthy gift inscription from one John Conyers to his son, dated 1796. Occasional marginalia; a few old annotations to endpapers.
Scattered light foxing, light expert restoration to beautiful morocco bindings.