BIBLE.
FIELD’S ‘PEARL’ BIBLE - EXQUISITE SOMBRE BINDING WITH SILVER ORNAMENTS
The Holy Bible containing ye Old and New Testaments.
London, Printed by John Field, 1653£4,950.00
2 vols. 24mo. ll. (cclxxxiii. cccxvi). Roman letter, text in two columns. Etched t-p with title between Moses and David, angels above and the Four Evangelists below, mounted on flyleaf. Divisional t-p for NT with typographical ornament. Occasionally shaved touching running headers. An excellent, clean copy in late C17 or early C18 black morocco ‘sombre’ binding in exceptional condition, delicately tooled with interlacing and floral motifs including tulips using roll, individual and pointillé tooling, gilt double fillet border, edges and turn-ins, spines gilt in compartments, each with four skull and crossbones tools in blind, silver oval supralibros engraved with monograms (WCH?) and foliated designs, cornerpieces and clasps, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers, some very light rubbing at head and foot of spines and to gilt borders, claps lightly tarnished in places, in folding box. Autographs to fly of first vol. of Margaret Harwood, 1763, Barbara Hales, 1833 and Charlotte Mary Wilson, 1870, one or two C19 ms. corrections to text.
A beautiful copy of this notoriously misprinted Bible, the first of the so-called ‘Pearl Bibles,’ for their diminutive size, in an exquisitely tooled ‘sombre’ binding with silver clasps and engraved, monogrammed supralibros, in superb condition. Sombre bindings, so named for their use of black morocco and ‘memento mori’ tools suggestive of death, sometimes often associated with the Puritan tradition, were very popular between around 1670 and 1720. It is rare to find bindings of this kind in such excellent and untouched condition, especially with all silver fittings intact.
‘This small Bible is very incorrectly printed, and was singled out by [William] Kilburne for special condemnation [in his list of errors in printed Bibles, published 1659]: ‘In a Pearl Bible printed by John Field at London in 1653, in volume 24o (very small to carry in pockets) whereof there have been near 20,000 dispersed, are these egregious faults, viz: … Rom. 6. 13. ‘Neither yield up your members as instruments of righteousness unto sin,’ for ‘unrighteousness.’ Cor. 6. 9. ‘Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit the Kingdom of God?’ for ‘Shall not inherit.’ This is the foundation of a damnable Doctrine for it hath been averred by a reverend Doctor of Divinity to several worthy persons, that many Libertines and licentious people did produce, and urge this Text from the authority of this corrupt Bible against his mild Reproofs, in Justification of their vicious and inordinate Conversations’ (D&M). Our copy contains both these errors, which are not guaranteed to be present: ‘varieties occur, differing in the engraved title, the number of errors, and other details. Many copies, probably, were corrected by cancel-leaves’ (D&M).
This was the pocket Bible carried by John Wesley, which he prized precisely because of its errors, seeing these as a symbol of the need to interrogate scripture and noting them on the fly-leaf of his personal copy; the same copy is today passed down to each new President of the Methodist Conference after their election.
Darlow & Moule 496, variant A (containing all errors mentioned and with ye Old to t-p, which is unsigned). Herbert 635. ESTC R170533.In stock
