This leaf was once part of a Book of Hours: a prayer book with eight sections corresponding to different times of day, always containing the Hours of the Virgin, as well as a calendar and selection of psalms, but more or less personalized depending on each owner's taste and social class. Illuminated Books of Hours like this signaled the owner's status and “values” at the same time — the more sophisticated the decoration, the more money spent — therefore, the more devout the scribe's patron!

•  Soft, white vellum, red edges, lightly soiled; tiny nicks (as usual) on one edge of the leaf where it was sometime detached from previous sewing, preserving margin except for one lower corner where a bit of vellum was cut away or naturally lacking. Very charming.  (30810)

The volume's title-page shows the simple all-caps word “Biblia” printed within a decorative woodcut frame below which is a version of the Estienne printer's device. The text includes the Apocrypha and Psalms at the end of the New Testament; the inner margin contains subject headings, references, and variants, while the outer margin provides the above-mentioned notes. The edition, in octavo, was Estienne's second venture only at producing a Bible in that format. This copy is lightly ruled in red throughout.

Binding:   17th-century limp vellum with slightly yapp edges and evidence of ties (now perished), covers ruled in gilt with fleur-de-lis corner devices to form a frame for a gilt center device; spine with gilt rolls and center devices. All edges gilt.

Provenance:  18th-century ownership signature on rear pastedown of Margaret Sizer, Berwick on Tweed.

•  Renouard 62.2; Adams B1036; Darlow & Moule 6127; Schreiber, Estiennes, 83.   Binding as above, with hand-inked spine title; vellum soiled and loosening from the text block, with 2.5" split at front joint (outside). Front pastedown largely lost, remnants with pencilled annotations. Title-page and last page dust-soiled. Overall a good++ copy, handsome on shelf and satisfying in hand.  (38197)

The paper stock used for the interleaving has the classic ProPatria watermark and that and its countermark match Churchill's 151, which has a starting date of 1799.

•  Darlow & Moule 4650; Adams B1711. On the interleaves' watermarks, see: Churchill, Watermarks in paper in Holland, England, France, etc., in the XVII and XVIII centuries.   19th-century half vellum with German pastepaper over boards, spine with tinted and tooled label, text recased and new endpapers; vol. I (only) of this production, without the Epistles and Revelation. Title-page creased and dust-soiled, all leaves before pp. 9/10 rodent-gnawed in lower outside corner with loss of paper but not of text or manuscript annotation, and a bit of light waterstaining to rearmost leaves only. An important edition and a singular copy.  (37032)

Binding:  18th-century crimson straight-grain morocco, covers framed in dotted gilt rules, board edges and turn-ins with dotted gilt rule, spine similarly ruled and with gilt-stamped title. All edges gilt and a light blue silk ribbon placemarker still present. Almost certainly done by Roger Payne, Syston Park's preferred binder.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with bookplates of H. Walter Webb and Syston Park (i.e., the famousSyston Park Library, collected at Lincolnshire by Sir John Hayford Thorold, Bart., and his predecessors); front free endpaper with bookplate of Leila Howard Codman; most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.The Sotheby's catalogue of the Syston Park sale suggests that the present copy was Sir John's duplicate, this example having marbled endpapers rather than the “silk linings” described in another copy.

•  Darlow & Moule 4679; Willems 396.   Bound as above, spine slightly dimmed. Bookplates as above; front free endpaper and fly-leaf with affixed slips of old cataloguing and pencilled annotations. Pages clean. A nice copy with pleasing, in fact prestigious, provenance.  (37819)

Binding:  Contemporary calf, round spine, gilt spine extra, handsome metal and leather closures with gilt tooling on the leather; very pretty, simple single gilt-roll border on each board. German floral paste-decorated endpapers and all edges red.

Provenance:  Ownership signatures of I. Duvarus (1774); J.G. Drunnburg (1822) Johann O. Nordendam (1830) on front fly-leaf.

•  Darlow & Moule 8966; Graesse 103.   Leather “shellacked” and shiny; volume now solid with front board reattached using the long-fiber method and areas of spine similarly improved. A sophisticated copy: four leaves of the prefactory matter (b1–4) are inserted from a small copy (possibly even a different edition). Some early underscoring; overallvery decent as a text and very attractive on shelf or in hand.  (36974)

Darlow and Moule (4557) observe: “Beyond their interest to the student of textual criticism, these fragments possess special value for the philologist as preserving what is 'by several centuries the oldest specimen of Teutonic speech.'”

Provenance:  The Howell Bible Collection, Pacific School of Religion (properly released).

•  Darlow & Moule 1604 & 4557; Brunet, II, 1118.   Late 17th- or early 18th-century Cambridge style calf; recently well rebacked with blind-tooled device in four of the five spine compartments, a very dark brown leather spine label neatly gilt, and new endpapers. Despite provenance, NO library markings. A very nice copy.  (36163)

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)

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with early inscription in red pencil: “Gibson's [/] Queens [/] Oxon. [/] 1787[?].” Most recently in the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Biblos: Wing (rev.) B3632; ESTC R204258; Griffiths 45:3. Psalterion: Wing B2720A; ESTC R204259. Tes kaines diathekes: Darlow & Moule 4702; Wing B2733.   Bound as above, worn and showing expectable acid-pitting with edges, extremities, and spine rubbed; spine label cracked with loss of central portion of label. Endpapers with early inked annotations in Greek and English. A few leaves with light waterstaining in upper portions; one leaf with tear from outer margin into text, with loss of one letter; one leaf with short tear along paper flaw, without loss of text. Final work with early inked underlining; rear fly-leaf with a few jotted references in Greek. A scholar's copy of this nice example of early English Greek liturgical/scriptural printing.  (37826)

Provenance:  The Howell Bible Collection, Pacific School of Religion (properly released).

•  Wing (rev. ed.) B2801aA; Darlow & Moule 1450 (Polyglot), 626 (English), 3329 (Dutch), 3768 (French).; ESTC R212805.   Contemporary dark calf, modestly ruled in blind; spine label gilt-tooled, front free endpaper lacking. Ex-library as above with bookplate, charge pocket, and date due slip, but no stamps on any pages. Ambitious yet compact, and comfortable when handheld, this is an attractive production.  (36320)