The Great “She” Bible BIBLE IN ENGLISH. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New. Newly translated out of the Originall Tongues: and with the former Translations diligently compared and revised by his Maiesties speciall Commandement, Appointed to be read in Churches. London: Imprinted...by Robert Barker, 1613. Full Description:
Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New. Newly translated out of the Originall Tongues: and with the former Translations diligently compared and revised by his Maiesties speciall Commandement, Appointed to be read in Churches.
London: Imprinted...by Robert Barker, 1613.
Newly translated out of the Originall Tongues: and with the former Translations diligently compared and revised by his Majesties Speciall Commandement. Appointed to be read in Churches. London: Imprinted...by Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings most excellent Majestie, 1613-1611.
Second folio edition of the King James Bible, also known as the “Great She Bible.” Large folio (14 11/16 x 10 inches; 372 x 253 mm.). 752 leaves. Fifty-nine lines. Text in double columns within woodcut rules. Black letter, with roman for chapter summaries, and roman and italic for marginalia. Calendar and almanac printed in red and black. Woodcut title border (McKerrow and Ferguson 231) signed RL and CS. Genealogical tables with woodcut borders and incorporating woodcut illustrations, including Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, the Tower of Babel, and other biblical subjects. Decorative woodcut head- and tail-pieces and decoratve and historiated woodcut initials. Facsimile of the 1611 “He” Bible engraved title inserted. Complete with Speed’s map (map professionally restored).
Collation: A-B4 (A1r general title, A2r dedication to King James I, A3v “The Translators to the Reader”) A-C6 (Speed’s Genealogies) C6 D4 (C1r calendar printed in red and black, D1r almanac printed in red black, D1v Easter table printed in red and black, D2r table and calendar, D4v books of the Bible printed in red and black) Complete with Ee2 (Speed’s Map) A-Z6 Aa-Zz6 Aaa-Zzz6 Aaaa-Zzzz6 Aaaaa-Ccccc6 (Old Testament and Apocrypha); A-2Z6 Aa6 (New Testament). In this copy the Genealogies are bound before rather than after the calendar.
Late eighteenth-century panelled calf, neatly rebacked. Spine ruled in blind and lettered in gilt in compartments. Marbled endpapers. General title restored at margins. Some marginal restoration, minor repairs, and paper faults touching only a few letters throughout. Generally, an exceptionally fresh and clean copy of this monumental work. Housed in a quarter morocco clamshell.
“Fry’s ‘first edition, second issue, without reprints,’ of King James’ Bible. Others more correctly style it the ‘second folio edition, 1613, 11,’ inasmuch as it deserves to be reckoned a distinct edition... The general title is usually dated 1613, though the NT title bears the date 1611” (Herbert). Commonly known as the “Great She Bible,” for the more correct reading “she went into the citie” in Ruth III. 15, and also for the remarkable error in Matthew XXVI. 36 (leaf , where “Judas” appears for “Jesus.” Sometimes a correction slip is pasted over the mistake, but in the present copy it is corrected in an early hand.
“The King James Bible, or the Authorized Version, as it is now commonly (but not strictly accurately) known, was the outcome of the conference summoned at Hampton Court by the King in January 1604, in an attempt to settle the quarrels in the Church of England, arising from the Puritan zeal of some of its members. It was the leader of the Puritan party, John Reynolds, the President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, who first suggested the idea of a new translation...It has been described as ‘the only literary masterpiece ever to have been produced by a committee’ and was the work of nearly fifty translators, organized in six groups...Being based on a wider range of classical and oriental scholarship than its predecessors, the Authorized Version was a more learned text...No new English translation was produced until the Revised Version of 1881, and the influence of the Authorized Version may best be described in the words of G.M. Trevelyan. ‘For every Englishman who had read Sidney or Spenser, or had seen Shakespeare acted at the Glove, there were hundreds who had read or heard the Bible with close attention as the words of God. The effect of the continual domestic study of the book upon the national character, imagination and intelligence for nearly three centuries to come, was greater than that of any literary movement in our annals, or any religious movement since the coming of St Augustine’” (Printing and the Mind of Man 114, describing the 1611 first edition).
“The translators were directed to take the rendering of the Bishops’ Bible as their basis, and were advised also to consult the following versions: Tyndale’s, Matthew’s, Coverdale’s, Whitchurch’s (i.e. the Great Bible), and the Geneva” (Herbert 309, describing the 1611 first edition).
John Speed was granted a patent in 1610 for ten years to issue and insert his “Genealogies” and double-page general map (engraved by Elstrack) in every edition of this Bible.
Darlow & Moule 246. Herbert 319. Pforzheimer 63. STC 2224. W.E. Smith, “A Study of the Great She Bible”, The Library 2 (1890): 1-11, 96-102, 141ff.
HBS 69661.
$175,000.
Price: $175,000.00
Item #69661