Notes and Queries, Number 239, May 27, 1854 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc

Excerpt

REPRINTS OF EARLY BIBLES.

In 1833 the authorities of the Clarendon Press put forth a quarto reprint, word for word, page for page, and letter for letter, of the first large black-letter folio edition of 1611, of the present authorised or Royal version of the Bible. So accurate was it, that even manifest errors of the press were retained. It was published that the reader might judge whether the original standard could still be exactly followed. It was accompanied by a collation with a smaller black-letter folio of 1613, in preference to the larger folio of that year, as no two copies (entire) of the latter could be found, all the sheets of which corresponded precisely:

"Many of these copies contain sheets belonging, as may clearly be proved, to editions of more recent date; and even those which appear to be still as they were originally published, are made up partly from the edition printed at the time, and partly from the remains of earlier impressions."

Now this is a most interesting subject to all lovers of our dear old English Bible. It is supposed the translators revised their work for the 1613 edition (after two years); yet the collation with the small folio of that year, shows little or no improvement, rather the contrary. I possess a small quarto edition of 1613 (black-letter, by Barker), not mentioned by our more eminent bibliographers, which, while admitting the better corrections, adheres to the old 1611 folio, where the small folio of 1613 unnecessarily deviates. It is certainly, I consider, a most valuable impression. I have lately purchased a magnificent copy of the great folio of 1613. It is in the original thick oak binding, with huge brass clasps, corners, and bosses; and appears to have been chained to a reading-desk. In collating it, I find a sheet or two in 1 Samuel and St. Matthew most carefully supplied from an earlier impression. The titles both to the Old and New Testaments are exactly the same as those of the folio 1611, with the exception of the date 1613 for 1611. It has been gloriously used, and the imagination revels in the thought of the eyes and hearts that must have been blessed by its perusal. I am not sufficiently conversant with our earlier translations to identify, without reference, the sheets of the inserted edition, and I have not time to refer. I may only say that there is a most quaint woodcut of little David slinging a stone at the giant Goliath. A slight collation of Genesis shows me this large edition agrees in corrections with the small one the Clarendon Press authorities used, though my quarto 1613 differs, adhering, as I said before, more closely to the original standard of 1611. I would put a Query or two to your many readers.

1. Was the great folio 1613 ever published entire, or are the sheets I have indicated supplied in every known copy, some from earlier, some from later, impressions? 2. Is it an established fact, that the translators revised their work in 1613? 3. What is the small quarto of 1613 I have mentioned?

Lastly, would it not be an interesting enterprise to reprint our various translations of the holy volume in a cheap and uniform series, like the Parker Society published the Liturgy?...