Bible in English | A spectacular association copy of the first edition of the Geneva Bible - photo 1
Bible in English | A spectacular association copy of the first edition of the Geneva Bible - photo 2
Bible in English | A spectacular association copy of the first edition of the Geneva Bible - photo 3
Bible in English | A spectacular association copy of the first edition of the Geneva Bible - photo 4
Bible in English | A spectacular association copy of the first edition of the Geneva Bible - photo 5
Bible in English | A spectacular association copy of the first edition of the Geneva Bible - photo 6

Bible in English | A spectacular association copy of the first edition of the Geneva Bible

Lot 1003
21.07.2022 10:00UTC -05:00
Classic
Starting price
$ 120 000
AuctioneerSotheby´s
Event locationUSA, New York
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 796067
Lot 1003 | Bible in English | A spectacular association copy of the first edition of the Geneva Bible
Estimate value
$ 120 000 – 180 000
Bible in English

The Bible and Holy Scriptures conteyned in the Olde and Newe Testament. Translated according to the Ebrue and Greke, and Conferred with the Best Translations in Divers Languges. With Moste Profitable Annotations Upon all the Hard Places, and other things of great importance as may appeare in the epistle to the reader. At Geneva: Printed by Rouland Hall, 1560 [bound with:] The Whole Book of Psalmes: Collected into English Meeter, by Thomas Sternhold, John Hopkins, and others, Conferred with the Hebrew, with Apt Notes to Sing Them Withall. Cambridge: Printed by the printers to the Universitie of Cambridge, 1634



4to (245 x 162 mm). Title-page with woodcut vignette of the parting of the Red Sea, separate title-page (with same woodcut), foliation, and signage for The Newe Testament, 26 woodcut illustrations, maps, and plans in text, 4 (of 5, "Description of the Holie Land" from Mark present in fragmentary form only) full-sheet woodcut maps, numerous 7-line ornamental woodcut initials, ruled in red throughout, fo. 2.94 misprinted 84; "The forme of the Temple & citie restored" is restored at lower left costing a small portion of the woodcut, fo. 247 (Qqiii) with marginal repair costing a few letters of shoulder-notes, fo. 2.17 (EEi) with lower fore-edge corner lost costing a few words of text and shoulder-notes, title-page soiled and with marginal repair, front blanks with annotations restored, lower margin of the Table to the Psalmes (H3) extended, lacking final blank H4; some soiling, staining, and marginal wear throughout, but withal a near-fine, textually complete copy. Contemporary (with the Psalmes) English brown morocco gilt, covers paneled with dog-tooth rolls, fleuron cornerpieces at border and within central frame, which encloses a central arabesque ornament, smooth spine in six compartments, front cover with an applied nineteenth-century paper label regarding provenance (see below); quite rubbed, with dulling of gilt, rebacked preserving much of original spine, corners renewed, ties lost. Half brown morocco folding-case gilt.



First edition of the Geneva Bible. "The Geneva translation became the household Bible of Elizabethan England and retained its popularity well into the next century, when its influence gradually gave way to the Authorized Version of 1611. The community of Marian exiles in Geneva who translated and printed this first edition followed the distinctive features of contemporary French Genevan Bibles—convenient size, roman type, numbered verse divisions, and the inclusion of historical tables, explanatory pictures, plans, and maps. … These visual aids reflect Genevan concern that even the 'simple reader' should understand obscure passages of scripture" (Luborsky & Ingram).



This Bible was the produced by the community of Marian exiles who settled in Geneva—English Protestants who fled to Continental Europe during the 1553–1558 reign of the Roman Catholic Queen Mary I and King Philip. More scholarly than any previous translation, it was largely the work of William Whittingham, Anthony Gilby, Thomas Sampson, and, perhaps, Miles Coverdale. “While Tyndale’s and Coverdale’s earlier translations and notes were in the Lutheran tradition, the arguments and explanatory notes of the Geneva Bible were Calvinist in tone” (PMM).



A highly significant association copy with a letterpress exlibris at the foot of the final page (LLl3v, the conclusion of the Table), stating "This Bible apperteineth to Francis Wythers." Wythers was one of the financiers of the Geneva Bible as well as a deacon of the English Church in that city (1556–57). We are unaware of any other copy of the first edition of the Geneva Bible so denominated for a leader of the Marian exiles.



As reflected by the popularity of its translation, copies of the first edition of the Geneva Bible were heavily read and are typically defective. The present copy, in addition to having a spectacular association, is also the most complete copy at auction in more than forty years.



REFERENCE:

ESTC S101758; STC/Luborsky & Ingram 2093; Herbert 107; Printing and the Mind of Man 83; cf. Bobrick, Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible, passim; Psalmes: ESTC S90795; STC 2654 (The subtitle of the Sternhold and Hopkins's metered translation of the Psalms makes clear that the texts are not only suitable for worship services but also "in private houses, for their godly solace and comfort, laying apart all ungodly songs and balads, which tend onely to the nourishing of vice, and corrupting of youth.")



PROVENANCE:

The Rootham family from the mid-seventeenth to early twentieth centuries (genealogical, poetical, and other annotations throughout, including a manuscript label mounted on the front cover, attest to the family's ownership, including signatures by Thomas Rootham, Robert Rootham, William Rootham, Mary Rootham, and several John Roothams)
Category:Religion
Auction house category:Books
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