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(A Famous & SPLENDID American Bible). Bible.
English. 1846. Authorized (i.e., “King James Version”).
The illuminated Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments...With
marginal readings, references, and chronological dates. Also, the Apocrypha....Embellished
with sixteen hundred historical engravings by J.A. Adams, more than fourteen hundred
of which are from original designs by J.G. Chapman. New York: Harper & Brothers,
1846. Folio (34 cm, 13.4"). Frontis., add. engr. t.-p., [6], 844, [2], 128, [6],
frontis., add. engr. t.-p., [2], 256, 3, [1], 8, 14, 34 pp.; illus.
$2850.00
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the images for enlargement.
When the Harper firm published The Illuminated Bible near the midpoint of the 19th century, the company produced one of the most elaborate and costly American Bibles to that time. O'Callaghan says, “This work was originally announced in 1843, and was issued in 54 numbers at 25 cents each. J.A. Adams, the engraver, is credited with having taken the first electrotype in America from a woodcut. Many in this Bible are so done. Artists were engaged for more than six years in the preparation of the designs and engravings . . . at a cost of over $20,000.”
The title's use of the word “illuminated” refers not (as usual) to decoration in gold, but both to the huge number of illustrations and to the fact that the half-titles, the title-leaves, and the presentation and birth, death, and marriage leaves are printed using colored inks. Concerning the illustrations, Frank Weitenkampf wrote in The Boston Public Library Quarterly (July, 1958, pp. 154–57): “The engravings after Chapman carefully reproduced the prim line-work method of the Englishman Bewick, introduced here by Alexander Anderson. . . . [T]his Harper publication was a remarkable production for its time and place, and retains its importance in the annals of American book-making. W.J. Linton, noted wood-engraver and author, knew ‘no other book like this, so good, so perfect in all it undertakes.'”
Binding, signed: Contemporary red
morocco, cover panels deeply beveled, inside bevel framed in wide gilt roll
with gilt-stamped corner decorations, spine gilt extra, turn-ins w ith beautiful,
bright gilt rolls. Signed by Cook & Somerville of New York.

Provenance:
Front cover gilt-stamped “Mary Van Horne Clarkson”; inscriptions
of several members of the Van Horne Clarkson family, mostly in New York.
O'Callaghan 288–89; Hills 1161. Binding as above,
joints and extremities rubbed, covers with scrapes and discolorations but
gilt still bright; repair to foot of front cover joint (hinged in place with
appropriate papers; exterior secured with toned tissue), abraded leather consolidated.
As might well be expected of such a massive volume, hinges and joints are
tender. Occasional very faint spotting, pages generally clean, with family
register leaves unused. Last (index) leaf with tear from inner margin extending
into text, repaired with long-fiber tissue and wheat starch paste.
In
its signed binding, this is an interesting example of a very impressive production.
(28808)

Printed in England in 1665 & Bound in
AMERICA in 1829
(An ENGLISH Bible That Became “AMERICAN”). Bible. O.T. Greek. Septuagint. 1665. [four lines in Greek, then] Vetus testamentum graecum ex versione Septuaginta interpretum, juxta exemplar Vaticanum Romae editum. Cantabrigiae: Excusum per Joannem Field, 1665. 12mo (14 cm; 5.5"). [1] f., 19, [1], 755 [i.e. 767, 1], 516 pp. (without the initial blank).
$1800.00
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The second English edition of the Septuagint. There are different issues: This a copy of the one with the third word of the Greek title readiing “Diathēche” and not “Diathēke” and with the printer's device showing the man holding the sun in his left hand. Thus, this is Darlow and Moule issue “B.”
Thomas Jefferson owned a copy of one of the issues of this edition.
Provenance: Manuscript ownership inscription of John Ray dated 1716 (on retained fly-leaf); ownership signature of Robert L. Wilson, New York, 1818 (on title-page); gilt supra-libros of Barzillai Slosson, dated 1829. Later in the Howell Bible Collection, Pacific School of Religion (properly released).
Binding: American binding of dark blue goat, richly gilt, with wide floral border on covers and spine distinctively gilt using rules and floral roll. Board edges with a gilt roll; turn-ins gilt tooled. Marbled endpapers. All edges gilt. Gilt supra-libros of Barzillai Slosson as above. Unsigned.
Barzillai Slosson may have been related to the lawyer of the same name who was active in Kent, CT, at the end of the 18th century and into the fourth decade of the 19th, whose account books are in the Yale Law Library; perhaps, the Barzillai who graduated from Columbia College in 1818 and later moved to Geneva, NY, where he was active and successful in business and civic affairs.
Wing (rev. ed.) B2719. Darlow & Moule; 4702; ESTC R236848; Sowerby, Catalogue of the library of Thomas Jefferson, 1473. Binding as above, lightly rubbed. Pages closely cropped in the 19th-century rebinding and some initial or final letters touched or lost. Very good. (34786)



Early ABS Spanish New Testament — A Controversial Translation
Bible. N.T. Spanish. 1823. Scio de S. Miguel. El Nuevo Testamento de nuestro señor Jesu Cristo, traducido de la Biblia Vulgata Latina. Nueva York: Estereotipa por Elihu White a costa de la Sociedad Americana de la Biblia, 1823. 12mo (18 cm, 7"). 376 pp.
$600.00
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This is an early reprint (the 7th edition, the 5th through 9th editions all appearing in 1823) of the 1819 edition of the New Testament in Spanish published by the American Bible Society, which was the first printing in Spanish of any portion of the Bible in the New World. To avoid controversy, and to appeal to Catholics, a translation approved for use in the Catholic Church was employed. This resulted in some criticism from the ABS's Protestant base, but proved a successful strategy to
get the Scriptures into the hands of Spanish speakers in the newly independent nations south of the U.S.
Darlow & Moule 8495; Shoemaker 11841; not in O'Callaghan; not in O'Callaghan, Supplement,. Contemporary sheep, spine with gilt rules and tiny remnant of black leather title label; some rubbing and abrasions, spine leather with fine cracks. Waterstaining, sometimes nearly invisible, other times noticeable; scattered foxing and browning throughout.
A solid, sound copy of a text that was a bit of a landmark for the ABS. (35158)
Bible.
N.T. French. 1824. Ostervald. Le nouveau testament de notre seigneur Jésus-Christ... seconde édition Américaine. Boston: J.H.A. Frost, 1824. 12mo (18.2 cm, 7.1"). 379, [5 (1 blank)] pp.
$600.00
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Early American edition of the translation by eminent Swiss Protestant Jean Frédéric Ostervald, based on a Paris edition and following 1811 and 1814 U.S. printings. Likely intended for use among French Canadians and French émigrés in the United States, this is a good
example of an early American printing of a complete Testament, either Old or New, in French.
Shoemaker 15382. Contemporary speckled sheep, worn and abraded, spine with gilt-stamped leather title label. Front pastedown with early numerical inscription. Outer margins of last few leaves waterstained; some pages with mild cockling or light spotting, others with varying degrees of age-toning. (6030)

Pocket New Testament — New Hampshire, 1831
Bible. N.T. English. 1831. Authorized (i.e., “King James Version”). The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.... Exeter, N.H.: James Derby, 1831. 32mo (11.1 cm, 4.375"). 259, [1 (blank)] pp. (lacks the frontis.).
$150.00
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“Stereotyped by the publisher,” this 32mo pocket New Testament is printed in two
columns in small type set 16 lines to the inch.Binding: Straight-grained roan, covers gilt-ruled and spine gilt extra.
O'Callaghan 213; Hills 765 (not calling for a frontis.) ; not in Herbert. Binding rubbed, with corners bumped and spine-gilt faded but still softly pretty; lacking the frontispiece (which Hills does not call for) and title-page partially detached at gutter. Pp. 5–6 and 229–30 chipped on lower outer corner, with loss of part of page number from the former; free endpapers chipped; some old dog-ears; light foxing and occasional spots, and occasional light waterstaining.
An attractive, solid small American Testament. (7513)

NOAH WEBSTER Revises the Language of the BIBLE
for Americans
Bible. English. Webster. 1833. The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments, in the common version, with amendments of the language by Noah Webster. New Haven: Durrie & Peck; Sold by Hezekiah Howe & Co., and by N. & J. White, 1833. 8vo (23 cm; 9"). xvi, 907 pp.
$8000.00
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First edition of the Bible in English (Authorized Version) tailored for American readers by Noah Webster (1758–1843). “His purpose was to remove obsolete words and those offensive to delicacy” (Rumball-Petre), Webster himself further stipulating, “To avoid giving offense to any denomination of christian [sic], I have not knowingly made any alteration to the passages of the present version, on which the different denominations rely for the support of their peculiar tenets” (Preface, p. iv). Webster further explains that the purpose of his revisions is to make the language clearer and purer so as to not “divert the mind from the matter to the language of the scriptures, and thus, in a degree, frustrate the purpose of giving instruction” (Preface, p. xvi).
Webster considered his work on the revision of the Bible more important than that on the dictionary and was sorely disappointed at the Bible's poor reception among all levels of readers.
Provenance: 19th-century ownership signatures of Luther P. Hubbard (undated) and R.T. Hall (1894); after ca. 1954 in The Howell Bible Collection, Pacific School of Religion (properly released).
Darlow & Moule 1793; Hills 826; Rumball-Petre 197. Publisher's sheep, spine dry and tending to flake; front board once detached and resecured with a cloth tape repair at the hinge (inside). Foxing as usual. Priced to encourage better repair to its binding, this is a complete, sound copy. (33830)

A Very Protestant “Catholic” N.T. — Publisher's Moiré Cloth Binding
Bible. N.T. English. Rheims. 1834. The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Translated out of the Latin Vulgate, diligently compared with the original Greek, and first published by the English college of Rheims, anno 1582. With the original preface, arguments and tables, marginal notes, and annotations. To which are now added an introductory essay and a complete topical and textual index. New York: Jonathan Leavitt, 1834 (copyright 1833). 8vo (23 cm; 9"). [1] f., 458 pp.
$650.00
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First edition of this edition prepared for a Protestant audience; issued without a nihil obstat, it claims to be a faithful reprinting of the 1582 Rheims N.T., but it is most certainly not. As Hills explains, “This is a reprint in modernized spelling of the original edition of the Rheims NT, prepared for Protestants. O'Callaghan (p. 233–236) points out a good many errors in spite of the certificate of six clergymen that 'it is an exact and faithful copy of the original work without abridgment or addition, except that the Latin of a few phrases which were translated by the annotators, and some unimportant expletive words were undesignedly omitted'.”
A vastly anti-Catholic work in its preface and apparatus, it calls itself “a book of reference for all persons who desire to comprehend genuine Popery.”Binding: Publisher's green “contour” moiré cloth over boards with printed paper label on spine.
Hills 881; O'Callaghan 233-36; American Imprints 23377. On binding, see: Krupp, Bookcloth in England and America, 1823–50, Moi4. Bound as above; rebacked and most of original spine laid downwith hinges (inside) strengthened. Six-digit number stamped in lower margin of one preliminary page; moderate foxing, mostly in margins. (35413)

“Exhibited in a Manner Hitherto Unattempted” within an
Elegant Gilt-Tooled Binding
Bible. English. 1835. Authorized. The English version of the polyglott Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments; with the marginal readings: together with a copious and original selection of references to parallel and illustrative passages. Philadelphia: Stereotyped by L. Johnson. Published by DeSilver, Thomas, & Co., 1835. 16mo (14.9 cm; 5.875"). Engr. frontis., engr. t.-p., vii, 587, [1] pp., [1] plt., engr. section t.-p., 190 pp.
$175.00
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A gorgeously bound stereotyped 19th-century American Bible bearing the preface “The Harmony & Perfection of the Holy Scriptures” by surgeon Thomas Chevalier (1767–1824); this argues for the importance of using scripture to explain scripture, a practice specially enabled by the central column of references printed on each page of the biblical text.
The engraved title-page's vignette is of Abel's burnt sacrifice, after W. Hamilton, opposite a frontispiece of the destruction of Pharaoh's host, after Loutherbourg; both were engraved by Ellis.
Binding: 19th-century red sheep, spine gilt extra with arabesque design; covers framed in gilt double rules surrounding a rolled gilt design and a blind roll of zig-zags. Board edges and turn-ins with a similar zig-zag design in gilt; deep blue endpapers and all edges gilt.
Provenance: The Howell Bible Collection, Pacific School of Religion (properly released).
Bound as above, spine and section of back cover slightly darkened, light rubbing, more at spine tips and joints, a few spots of soiling. Light age-toning and pencilling, booklabel at back.
A nice little Philadelphia Bible in a graceful, refined American binding. (36516)

In a
GOOD AMERICAN Binding — Sarah Leverett's French Bible
Bible. French. 1839–40. Martin. La Sainte Bible...revue...par David Martin.... New York: Stéréotypé par Henry W. Rees, pour la Société Biblique Americaine, D. Fanshaw, Imprimeur, 1839–40. 8vo. 819 [1 (blank)] pp., 261, [1 (blank)] pp.
$525.00
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Only the second edition in the U.S. of the Martin edition of the French Bible. (Prior to 1835, the American Bible Society favored using the text of the 1805 French Bible.)Binding: This copy is exquisitely bound in full black leather in good imitation of morocco, elaborately stamped in gold on the covers forming a five-element frame or border, with gilt tooling on the board edges and with gilt inner dentelles. The spine has slightly raised bands and elaborate gold stamping in its compartments.
This is the second copy of this Bible that we have had and we are convinced that this is a publisher's deluxe leather binding. A choice of colors was apparently available, for the other copy we had was of an olive-green color.
Provenance: The name “Sarah B. Leverett” is lettered in gilt on the front cover, and the same name is given in precise gothic calligraphy on the front free endpaper.
Not in O'Callaghan; not in Darlow & Moule. Bound as above, corners a little bumped with a bit of long ago refurbishing thereto, dulling outermost elements of gilt border (only) on front cover, just at those corners. Evidence to endpapers of the volume's once having been sewn into a chemise or wrapper; old notes just discernible (not really readable) in a minute hand on front free endpaper (i.e., “behind” Sarah's name); see our image. Faint waterstaining in lower inside area for the first few pages (only).
The whole very attractive and well preserved. (2666)

“Toy” Bible — “Interesting Stories” &
Lots of Pictures
Bible. English. Authorized. Selections. 1841. Little picture Bible; containing interesting stories from the Old and the New Testaments. New Haven: S. Babcock, 1841. 12mo (15 cm, 5.9"). 24 pp.
$175.00
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Picture Bibles use imagery as well as words to impart stories and parables to a juvenile audience. From the series “Babcock's Moral, Instructive and Amusing
Toy Books,” this Little Picture Bible contains a selection of tales appealing to children — Jonah & the Whale, Solomon & the Queen of Sheba, Bread from Heaven, Water from a Rock — illustrated with
13 large octagonal wood engravings by Alexander Anderson, one of America's foremost wood engravers, who signed each image “Anderson” or with his initials. “The engravings illustrating biblical subjects (except no. 15) are from chapbooks published by Babcock between 1831 and 1833 . . .” (Pomeroy)
The wrappers are illustrated on the front with vignettes of children playing various games and on the back with a fancy border framing a publisher's advertisement interesting in itself.
Pomeroy, Alexander Anderson, 1945(a); Carstens, Babcocks, 788. Publisher's pale pink wrappers (now faded) printed in black. Small hole from
natural flaw in lower corner of front wrapper; rear wrapper partially detached; foxing, sometimes heavy, throughout. (31237)
The
First Choctaw New
Testament
Bible.
N.T. Choctaw. Wright-Byington. 1848. The New Testament
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, translated into the Choctaw language.
Pin chitokaka pi okchalinchi Chisus Klaist in Testament Himona, chahta anumpta
atoshowa hoke. New York: American Bible Society, 1848. 12mo (18.1 cm, 7.1").
818 pp.
$2275.00
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First edition of the first complete New Testament in Choctaw. Variously given as Chahta, Chactas, Chato, Tchakta, Chocktaw, or Chactaw, Choctaw is a language of the Muskogean family, spoken by Native Americans who originally lived in parts of Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana before being relocated to Oklahoma. This translation was done by two Presbyterian missionaries, the Revs. Alfred Wright and Cyrus Byington; the Book of a Thousand Tongues says that they were “substantially assisted by Joseph Dukes and W.H. McKinney, educated Choctaws.”
The Rev. Wright (1788–1853) spent over 30 years among the Choctaw people in Mississippi and Oklahoma. He founded the Wheelock Mission (named in honor of either Eleazer Wheelock, Dartmouth College's first president, or his son John, his successor as Dartmouth's president or possibly both) in 1832, where he was directly involved in developing the Choctaw written language, along with Byington and Dukes.
Darlow & Moule 3051; Newberry Library, Ayer Indians, Choctaw-9; North & Nida, Book of a Thousand Tongues (1972), 265; Pilling, Muskhogean, 101; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 2744. Not in Field; not in Sabin. Period-style half morocco and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title and date. First and last pages slightly smudged, text otherwise clean; a few scattered signatures unopened. A handsome copy of an uncommon and significant New Testament. (29504)

Benjamin Fay Mills's
Childhood Bible
Bible. English. Selections. 1858. The hieroglyphick Bible; or select passages in the Old and New Testaments, represented with emblematical figures, for the amusement of youth. New York: Leavitt & Allen, 1858. 12mo (14.2 cm, 5.7"). Frontis. (incl. in pagination), 132 pp.; illus.
$450.00
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Hieroglyphic Bibles were a popular version of the Good Book, designed for children who were in the early stages of learning to read. Here, the Biblical “hieroglyphics” are composed of
nearly 500 wood engravings, combined with words to spell out passages that are given in full verse below each rebus (with the pictured words italicized). This example of the classic children's book is an American reprinting of the edition that Hodgson first published in London in 1783.
Provenance: Front fly-leaf inscribed “Benjamin Fay Mills [/] From Pa & Ma [/] Christmas – 1862.” The New Jersey–born Mills (1857–1916), in his adult life, became a prominent evangelist and socially conscious humanitarian; a Christian Socialist who at various times was an itinerant preacher and lecturer said to have converted hundreds of thousands of hearers over more than a decade, a minister to the First Unitarian Church in Oakland, CA, and the founder and leader of the Los Angeles Fellowship and the Chicago Fellowship. Henry Miller cited Mills's as a life that was “singular and inspiring” to him (Miller, The Books in My Life).
The frontispiece here has been partially colored in and captioned “Garden of EDEN” in a youthful hand, presumably Mills's. Later in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard; small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.
Publisher's textured green cloth, front cover framed in blind surrounding decorative gilt-stamped title and book vignette, back cover with same design entirely in blind; rubbed, back cover showing light wear. Inscription as above; frontispiece with caption supplied in contemporary blue; title-page with Mills's childishly pencilled name. Scattered spots of mild foxing; first few leaves (including frontispiece and title-page) with semi-circle of waterstaining in upper margin, touching small section of upper portion of image; one leaf with short tear from outer margin, not extending past frame of page.
Hieroglyphic Bibles are always entertaining examples of juvenile religious instruction, and this one is particularly delightful as likely the first Bible owned by a much-admired American religious leader. (38464)

First Edition in Micmac
Bible. N.T. Acts. Micmac. 1863. Rand. Tan Teladakadidjik Apostalewidjik. [Then in Pitman phonetic alphabet] The Acts of the Apostles. In Micmac. Bath: Pr. for the British & Foreign Bible Society, by Isaac Pitman, 1863. 12mo (16 cm; 6.25"). 140 pp.
$350.00
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First edition of The Acts of the Apostles translated into Micmac, here in Pitman's phonetic alphabet. Isaac Pitman, the inventor of Pitman's shorthand writing system, was an advocate of a universal phonetic alphabet and printed several books of the Bible in Micmac using his alphabet. The translation used was Silas Rand's.
As plain as the binding may be, it has a binder's ticket: “Watkins Binder.”
Banks, p. 94; Pilling, Algonquian, p. 421; Darlow & Moule 6786; Newberry Library, Ayer Collection, Micmac 11; Pilling, Proof-Sheets, 3181g; Evans, Masinahikan, 519; Sabin 67763; Lande S195. Original sprinkled sheep, loss of leather at spine and one area of abrasion on rear board. Otherwise, very clean. (36317)

Civil War–Era Bible
Bible. English. 1865. Authorized (i.e., “King James Version”). The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments, translated out of the original tongues; and with the former translations diligently compared and revised. New York: American Bible Society, 1865. Tall 12mo (18 cm; 7"). 765 pp.
$250.00
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“57th edition,” according to the verso of the title-page; multiple issues of the King James version were released by the American Bible Society in 1865. The present, attractively bound example of the Society's “Nonpareil, 12mo” edition includes a separate title-page for the New Testament and four family record pages (unused, in this case).
Binding: Brown blind-embossed calf with ornate strapwork designs surrounding a central cartouche, “blank” areas textured with a wavy pattern like moiré silk; spine with blind rules “forming” spine compartments.
Evidence of readership: A few passages marked with pencilled X'es and a few pages turned in for ready finding (e.g., the 23d psalm; Luke 7, a chapter of miracles; Revelation's description of heaven). Two slips laid into Hebrews citing verses with names following — suggested reading from or for those people? Prayer memos?
Not in Hills. Binding as above, a little rubbed. Blind pressure-stamp of the York County Bible Society and private ownership signature on front free endpaper. Age-toning and some foxing, brown stain in lower margin of last few leaves (i.e., “Contents”).
A rather nice copy made particularly interesting by its signs of use. (34165)

First Published Complete Bible Translation by a WOMAN
The “Julia Smith” Bible
Bible. English. 1876. Smith. The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments; translated literally from the original tongues. Hartford: American Publishing Co., 1876. 8vo (25.5 cm, 10"). [2], 892, 276 pp.
$6500.00
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First and only edition of this interestingly nonconformist translation, done by a vocal suffragist known for protesting the taxation of unenfranchised women. Julia Evelina Smith (1792–1886), one of the five celebrated, talented siblings sometimes referred to as the “Marvelous Smith Sisters of Connecticut,” became a member of the Sandemanian sect after much independent religious study. She chose to have her private labor of love published to serve as a public demonstration of the intellectual capabilities of women, rebuking one dubious banker with the comment that she “thought it just as well to spend money to print this Bible as to put it into a thousand-dollar shawl” (New York Times, 9 March 1886).
Smith endeavored to provide an extremely literal, word-for-word rendition to enhance her and her sisters' understanding of the text. Regarding the rather tangled results, she notes in her preface that “readers of this book may think it strange that I have made such use of the tenses . . . It seems to me that the original Hebrew had no regard to time, and that the Bible speaks for all ages.”
Priding herself as a student of ancient languages particularly on her Hebrew, this translator closely followed the Masoretic text for the O.T. and
consistently used “Jehovah” for the Tetragrammaton.
Herbert 2002; Hills 1918; Rumball-Petre 201; Wright, Early Bibles of America, 234–35. On Smith, see: McHenry, Famous American Women, 383 (under entry for Smith, Abby Hadassah), and Sampson, With Her Own Eyes: The Story of Julia Smith, Her Life, and Her Bible. Publisher's pebbled brown cloth, title and translator's name simply gilt-stamped within blind-stamped panel; recently rebacked and original spine reapplied (spine slightly rumpled), one corner restored, other corners mildly rubbed. Hinges (inside) reinforced. Front pastedown with affixed newspaper clipping on the Smith sisters. One page with short tear from lower edge, not extending into text; pages clean.
A nice copy of a very desirable Bible. (27574)

A Classic Large
AMERICAN “Family” Bible
Bible. English. Authorized (i.e., “King James Version”). The holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments, translated out of the original tongues, and with the former translations diligently compared and revised; with complete concordance. Embracing every passage of Scripture in the largest editions. Philadelphia: A.J. Holman & Co., 1880. 4to (32 cm, 12.6"). [4], [9]–14, xvi, 103, [3], 48, 576, 104, [577]–767, [1], 41, [1], 22 pp.; 2 plts., 15 double-sided plts., 1 double-sided map.
$500.00
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Holman's edition, with Apocrypha and Psalms, LOTS of pictures, and
delightful apparatus. This hefty volume features a history of early editions of the Bible, an account of nations and orders mentioned in the Scriptures, a “Comprehensive Dictionary of the Bible” extensively illustrated with in-text engravings, a concise narrative of each book, and a concordance. In addition to its array of in-text illustrations, it is decorated with
18 engraved plates (15 of which are double-sided) done by various hands after designs by Gustave Doré, Leonardo da Vinci, and others; the count includes
two double-sided illuminated leaves for a certificate of matrimony and for marriage, birth, and death records (all left blank here).
Binding: Publisher's brown pebbled roan, covering thick papier-mâché covers done in a distinctly three-dimensional style: covers with bevelled edges, the surface separated into eight panels separated by wide and deeply incised borders of smooth leather surrounding a central title cartouche; the panels in relief ruled in blind and ornately gilt-stamped with floral, foliate, and cross motifs. All edges gilt. Endpapers of white moiré-patterned paper.
Hills 1942. Binding as above (Holman's style 14B), mildly rubbed overall, joints and hinges predictably tender. Frontispiece separated, first few leaves starting to separate also. One piece of dried plant matter and one small paper cherub laid in. Two leaves with short edge tears, without loss of text; one plate with short tear from lower edge, not touching image. Slight age-toning and very occasional faint spotting, two pages with small area of offsetting from now-absent laid-in slip, pages otherwise clean.
A pleasing example of its kind. (34527)

CHIPEWYAN — Language of the Canadian Arctic
Bible. N.T. Chipewyan. Kirkby. 1881. [three lines in syllabic characters, the first two transliterated as] Chi gothi tostomomenti ... [then in English] The New Testament translated into the Chipewyan language by the Archdeacon Kirkby. London: Pr. for the British & Foreign Bible Society, 1881. Small 8vo (19 cm; 6.5"). 396 pp.
[SOLD]
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First edition of the first New Testament in Chipewyan, an Athapascan language that should not be confused with Chippewa, the latter being an Algonquian language. The Chipewyans live in the Canadian Arctic regions around Hudson Bay, including Manitoba and the Northwest Territories, as well as northern parts of Alberta and Saskatchewan. It is printed in the Evans syllabic script with a syllabarium preceding the text.
Darlow and Moule say of printing in Chipewyan to their time: “With the exception of parts of the Book of Common Prayer and some hymns, no other Chipewyan editions have been printed.” That is not exactly true, for a few books of the Bible and the Gospels had also appeared prior to the publication of their monumental Bible bibliography; but the language was (and is) still
not a common one to see.
William West Kirkby (1827–1907) of the Church Missionary Society translated various works into Chipewyan, Wyandot, Slavey, and Cree. He may well have also been the first Anglican missionary to penetrate the American Arctic Circle.
Provenance: Gift inscription from A.D. Keewatin to the Rev. Arthur Henry Gibson on his ordination to the Diaconate in St. Paul's Church, Churchill, Manitoba in 1925.
Darlow & Moule 3021; Newberry Library, Ayer Collection, Chippewa-36 (erring in confusing Chipewyan as synonomous with Chippewa!); Banks (2nd ed.), 21; Evans, Masinahikan, 036; Pilling, Athapascan, p. 47 Not in Pilling, Proof-sheets. Publisher's textured black cloth, very plain. Gift inscription on a piece of paper glued to front fly-leaf; some adhesion of fly-leaf to verso of front free endpaper and an ink spot on closed fore-edges of the textblock. A very good copy. (37095)
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