Apocrypha,
from The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New.
[London: Robert Barker, 1611, 1613]
First two editions of the complete Apocrypha extracted from the “Great ‘He’ Bible” of 1611 and the “Great ‘She’ Bible” of 1613/1611. Each Large Post folio, 106 consecutive unpaginated leaves Iiii3-[Ccccc6] bound in sixes (plus [2 ll.] binder’s blanks front and rear), printed in ruled double columns of 59 lines (plus headlines and catchwords) on thick laid paper without watermark, the text in black letter with roman and italic types in the headings and marginal notes, decorative woodcut initials and printer's ornaments throughout. Both overall in fine condition, bright, fresh and well printed.
First edition from the “Great ‘He’ Bible”: overall 39.5 x 27.3 cm; the pages 39 x 26.3 cm. Mottled dark brown calf blind-tooled in retrospective 17th century English design, spine ruled in gilt in six compartments with raised bands, the first with red morocco gilt title piece, top edges trimmed smooth, others rough cut. Superficial scratches on covers, generally negligible stains, browning and creasing scattered infrequently throughout text, mostly marginal; small puncture on [Qqqq5] touching two text letters each side. Herbert 309, STC 2216.
Second edition from the “Great ‘She’ Bible”: overall 42.3 x 28.2 cm; the pages 41.2 x 27 cm, slightly irregular (39.8 cm at the gutter). Burgundy jansenist morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe (its gilt stamp lower front dentelle), spine titled in gilt between two raised bands, cover edges and wide dentelles ruled in gilt, top edges trimmed smooth, others rough cut, all stained red. Some wear on joints, endpapers split at extremities of front gutter, tips of corners bumped and rubbed, covers variously sunned, particularly the front over its top 8 cm, generally negligible stains, browning and creasing scattered infrequently throughout text, mostly marginal; small scrap of probably original waste paper stuck to bottom of Xxxx2r touching catchword. Provenance: Phillip C. Duschnes, his loose bookseller's label laid in; Paul Peralta-Ramos, his discreet circular red ink stamp on front free endpaper. Herbert 319, STC 2224.
The Apocrypha, as Bruce Metzger observes (op. cit., 1977,
pp.4-5), embody “historical genre” (1 Esdras, 1 & 2 Macc.),
“moralistic novels” (Tobit, Judith, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon),
“serious and didactic ... treatises on wisdom” (Wisdom, Ecclus.),
“devotional literature of a relatively high order” (Prayer of
Manasses) and “a book which attempts to unveil the future,”
the “apocalyptic” 2 Esdras. The seminal Wycliff Bible, as revised
by John Purvey by 1396, put the translation of the Vulgate into the vernacular
tongue, “with common charity to save all men in our realm” (Frederick
Bruce, op. cit., pp. 16-7).
Coverdale, first placing the Apocrypha as an appendix to the canonical
Old Testament in the 1537 edition of his “racy and idiomatic”
English Bible, emphasizes precisely the humanity of these writings. “[T]he
prayer of Azarias, and the sweet song that he and his two fellows sang in
the fire,” Coverdale writes in introduction, “have I not found
among any of the interpreters, but only in the old Latin text.... Nevertheless,
both because of those that be weak and scrupulous, and for their sakes also
that love such sweet songs of thanksgiving, I have not left them out: to
the intent that the one should have no cause to complain, and that the other
might have the more occasion to give thanks unto God in adversity, as the
three children did in the fire.” (Coverdale, “The Translator
unto the Reader,” quoted in Bruce, op. cit., p.61.) In the
early reign of Elizabeth the Articles of Religion under Archbishop Parker
again embrace the humanity of these books: “And the other books (as
Hierome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction
of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine;”
and thus the work of translation carried forward into the reign of James,
the Apocrypha of the 1611 edition incorporating much in the Geneva
Bible (Wheeler Robinson, op. cit., pp. 217-8). In 1615 Archbishop
Abbot forbade the printing of any Bible without the Apocrypha upon pain
of imprisonment; the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647 turned full
circle to declare “... [t]he books commonly called Apocrypha
... no part of the Canon of the Scripture; ... nor to be any otherwise approved,
or made use of, than other human writings.”
These complete and exceptional copies of Apocrypha are extracted from the first two editions, the “Great ‘He’ Bible” and the “Great ‘She’ Bible,” of the five 59-line black-letter folio editions of the King James Bible between 1611 and 1640, which were type-set to end invariably with the same word on each page. They each represent 106 leaves of the total 732 leaves in complete Bibles of these editions. The textual history of these Bibles has been studied successively by Francis Fry (op. cit., 1865), Frederick Scrivener (op. cit., 1884), Walter Smith (op. cit., 1890), William Aldis Wright (op. cit., 1909) and David Norton (op. cit., 2005). The present copy of the 1611 first edition collates exactly in every one of its 13 page-wide decorative scrolls, 172 decorative letters and header and footer panels with the 1611 “editio princeps” of the King James Bible in the Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library, BS185 1611.L65, at the University of Pennsylvania, available on-line for comparison. It also collates exactly with all except perhaps three of the first issue points listed by the foregoing scholars, and those three all appear in bifolia on which the decorations and other text points are in states specific to the first edition. The present copy of the 1613/1611 second edition corresponds with Smith’s priority printing (in his critical tabulation of Fry’s 128 “reprinted” bifolia – about one-third of the total sheets - to be found intermingled haphazardly in different copies of this edition) and collates in every case with the second edition variants and corrections listed by the foregoing scholars, including several points distinguishing the next black-letter folio edition of 1617. In summary, the present copies may be judged outstanding survivals in both their overall bibliographic states and their physical conservation and are excessively rare, indeed fascinating, as a pair.
References:
The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, London: Robert Barker, 1611, University of Pennsylvania Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library, BS185 1611 .L65.
Fry, Francis, A Description of the Great Bible, 1539, and the Six Editions of Cranmer's Bible, 1540 and 1541, Printed by Grafton and Whitchurch: Also of the Editions, in Large Folio, of the Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures, Printed in the Years 1611, 1613, 1617, 1634, 1640, London: Willis and Sotheran; Bristol: Lasbury, 1865.
Scrivener, F.H.A., The Authorized Edition of the English Bible (1611), Cambridge: University Press, 1884.
Smith, Walter E., “A Study of the Great ‘She’ Bible,” The Library, vol. II, pp. 1-11, 96-102, 141-153 (London: Elliot Stock, 1890).
Wright, William Aldis, The Authorized Version of the English Bible 1611, vol. I, Cambridge: University Press, 1909.
Robinson, H. Wheeler, ed., The Bible in its Ancient and English Versions, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940.
Herbert, Arthur Sumner, ed., Historical catalogue of printed editions of the English Bible, 1525-1961 / Rev. and expanded from the edition of T. H. Darlow and H. F. Moule, 1903, London: British and Foreign Bible Society; New York: American Bible Society, [1968].
Bruce, Frederick Fyvie, The English Bible; a History of Translations from the Earliest English Versions to the New English Bible, New York: Oxford University Press, 1970.
Metzger, Bruce Manning, An Introduction to the Apocrypha, New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Norton, David, A Textual History of the King James Bible, Cambridge
and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
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