KJV Folio Bible 1708, Whole Book Of Psalms 1702, W/ Original Brass And Maps:
This is a beautiful KJV Folio Bible, dated 1708 with an added Whole Book Of Psalms dated 1702.
There is a provenance label detailing the General Theological Seminary Library.
This tome has many period inscriptions details birth, death dates and miscellaneous writings. Many of which are hard to decipher here is one example:
"Ruth J. Paul Departed this life July the 8 156"
This Bible is could be an extensive and fascinating look into the history of printing for a very simple reason. It is most likely a pirated version of the KJV Bible!
This book contains all the hallmarks of a Dutch pirated edition of the bible:
- Purposely vague, omitting both the printer and the city where it was printed.
- Containing an "English Crown" Printing Licence Coat of Arms, but does not mention a printer.
- The size of this Folio is far larger than standard English printed bibles, but is inline with continental European sized bibles.
- Includes Junius and Baza (Standard in Dutch bibles, less so in English ones).
- Disparate dates on the various title pages: 1708 OT, 1707 NT and 1702 WBOP.
All these points show great similarities to the Boom family of printers.
Interestingly enough these Dutch prints were, of good quality since they used spurned or dissident English printers to make them.
This naturally made the pirated editions much cheaper for average people or "unauthorised" types of Christians, namely those in the English Colonies and especially puritans. We can see this in the fact that there are "Geneva" bible style annotations on the side-lines of the text, which were, for the most part, not present in a standardised KJV bible.
This bible contains many spectacular maps featuring A global map, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, The map around the Garden of Eden, a map of Jerusalem and a Map of the Holy Land. These maps were illustrated by J. Moxon.
This is a truly fantastic piece, perfect for any bible collection!
Herbert 897
Dimensions:
Weight - 5.02KG
Height - 41.5cm
Width - 27cm
Thickness - 9cm
Damages (Please see above photos for reference):
- Where the spine and covers connect there is wearing.
- Missing 1 brass stub and plate on bottom left corner of front cover.
- Foxing, staining and toning can be found throughout.
- Missing clasps
- Small tears can be found throughout the book, examples would be the title pages and maps.
