from The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New.
[London: Robert Barker, 1611-1613]
A complete Apocrypha extracted from the “Great ‘She’ Bible” of 1613/1611, second issue or edition after the first of 1611. Large Post folio (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. 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. Collates 110 ll.: 106 consecutive unpaginated leaves Iiii3-[Ccccc6] bound in sixes, plus [2 ll.] binder’s blanks front and rear. 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; overall in fine condition, bright, fresh and well printed. 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.
This complete Apocrypha is from the second, 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. The textual history of the first editions has been studied successively by Francis Fry (op. cit., 1865), Frederick Scrivener (op. cit., 1884), Walter Smith (op. cit., 1890) and David Norton (op. cit., 2005). Distinguishing two chief issues bearing the date 1611, Fry (pp. 23-4) nominates the British Museum copy 3050.g.2 as a “best” representative for the second issue, while observing a third class incorporating what he calls “reprints”: some 244 leaves altogether in second issue copies with divergences from what he deems a second issue standard. Scrivener (p. 6 and fn. 1) minimizes the influence of the “reprints,” which constitute only five leaves in the second issue of the Apocrypha, and sets up copy A.3.14 of the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press as an equivalent to BM 3050.g.2 for his collation excluding the effect of “reprints.” With this bias Scrivener lists 26 examples in his Appendix B of variations in the Apocrypha between “the two issues of the Authorized Bible, each bearing the date of 1611.” William Aldis Wright (op. cit., 1909, pp. xix-xxi) expands this list, without substantive discussion, to 94 examples of variations between his “First Issue” and “Second Issue” in the preface to his five-volume edition of the Authorized Version. Finally, Norton tabulates 50 examples of “first and second edition variations” of the Apocrypha in his Appendix 2 (pp. 178-9), 53 further examples in his Appendix 1 (pp. 170-1) of “printer’s errors in the first edition” having corrections made in the second edition and one corrected “hidden error” (Ecclus. 44:5, “recited”; see pp. 59-61) deemed a printer’s fault but not listed in his Appendices. The present copy accords with every one of the foregoing variations and corrected errors specified for its “issue,” which Smith in 1890 (pp. 3, 11) began to call the separate “second edition.”
Scrivener remarks (p.17) that “improvements brought in from time to time in Bibles of the Roman type [i.e., printed in Roman fonts] seem to have had very slight influence with the printers of the black-letter books of 1617, 1634, 1640, who continued to set the press from one or the other of the issues of 1611, almost regardless of subsequent changes for the better.” Nevertheless, Scrivener’s Appendix A, “Wrong readings of the Bible of 1611 amended in later editions,” cites six examples, almost buried among the numerous listings, of 1611 “wrong readings” in the Apocrypha corrected in the 1617 edition: 1 Esdras 8:40 (†Bago in text without any marginal note); 2 Esdras 7:37 m. (Archor), 15:50 (as floure), 16:52 (yet a little iniquitie); Judith 16:24 (to all them that are neerest); 1 Macc. 11: 3, 8, 13, 15-18 (Ptolomee). The present copy accords with the earlier reading in every case and so would antedate the 1617 “correction.” Norton complements this list, which presupposes the same reading in the two 1611 issues, with his Appendix 5, “Collation of 1617 folio with first and second editions,” showing which of two variant first and second edition readings is followed in 32 examples in the Apocrypha taken from the 1617 third edition of the 59-line black letter folio Bible. Twelve of the 32 examples correspond to the first edition reading, whereas in each of these 12 examples the present copy follows the second edition reading, which again would establish the present copy as being from the second rather than third edition. Indeed, Norton observes (pp. 80-1) that on a single page (Iiii6v) of 1 Esdras 5 in the 1617 edition appear three readings from the second edition and one, “Banuas” in v. 26, from the first edition, another indicator that the leaf in the present copy, reading “Bannas,” is from the second edition.
Finally, we may revisit Smith, who in 1890 re-examined, quite critically, Fry’s exposition of “reprints” in great depth and detail. Smith’s conclusions are summarized in an elaborate Table (see p. 152 and fnn. 37-9). In the Apocrypha Fry’s “reprinted” sheets or bifolia, sometimes bound with what he asserts are earlier sheets, are Iiii6 (here without its cognate Iiii1), Ssss3 and Ssss4, and Xxxx2 and Xxxx5. On Iiii1/6 the only alleged “reprint” is a single decorative capital “A” of a design, the same as in the present copy on Iiii6v, used throughout the 1611 issues, and Smith states that he does “not think this is properly a reprint at all; the only point of difference ... is the initial,” which he finds in eleven copies examined, as compared with only two for the variant, also commonplace in these issues. Sheet Ssss3/4 likewise evidences a single vagary, the large V in the heading “Chap.xVij.” on Ssss3r in the present copy, which Smith again does not accept as a true “reprint” but indeed surmises to be the deliberate first composition on the press. The third sheet Xxxx2/5 reads “light there- / of” in Baruch 4:2 m. in the present copy instead of “light thereof,” the latter reading “very rare” which Smith found in only two copies (he believes one to have been manipulated by Fry); in any event Smith deems the latter reading to be the “reprint” and the reading in the present copy to be prior.
In summary, the present copy of the Apocrypha may confidently be deemed a very fine representative of the Apocrypha extracted from the “Great ‘She’ Bible” of 1613/1611 as originally printed.
Provenance: Phillip C. Duschnes, his small bookseller's label laid in;
Paul Peralta-Ramos, his discreet circular red ink stamp on front free endpaper.
References:
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.
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].
Norton, David, A Textual History of the King James Bible, Cambridge
and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
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