Beschreibung:

From the Library of Clayre and Jay Michael Haft
Bible. English
The Byble, that is to say all the Holy Scripture: In whych are contayned the Olde and New Testament, truely and purely translated into Englishe By Thomas Matthewe. London: Thomas Raynalde and William Hyll, 1549
Folio (300 x 192mm.), general title and title to New Testament each with woodcut border, penultimate leaf in printed facsimile, final leaf in manuscript facsimile by John Sidney Hawkins, contemporary calf boards tooled in blind, handsomely rebacked in eighteenth-century calf gilt, spine with raised bands in six compartments, morocco labels to second, third, and fourth compartments, sprinkled edges, lacking final two leaves (supplied in facsimile), title-page and final original text leaf soiled, wormholes from title-page to P4, rustholes to LX and LXI, some marginal dampstaining, extremities rubbed, with modern repairs to spine ends
A reprint of the 1537 Bible in the translation ascribed to Thomas Matthew, now generally considered to have been a prudent pseudonym to avoid naming William Tyndale.
LITERATURE:DMH 75; ESTC S106941; STC 2078
PROVENANCE:Henry Grey: early modern ownership inscription to title; William Schuldham, Curate of the Parish of Worlingham, Suffolk (ordained 1711, died 1737): signed annotation to verso of *6, noting that "This Bible was not translated by Thomas Matthews as is said in the Title-page, but by William Tyndale with the assistance of Miles Coverdale", and annotation at upper margin of A1, noting that "This preface was wrote by Abp. Cranmer 1540"; The Rev'd. John Watson (1725-1783), Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries: bookplate, and with his annotation beneath Schuldman's on *6, noting the biography of Thomas Matthews; Dr Andrew Gifford (1700-1784, Baptist minister and the British Library's first Assistant Librarian in the Department of Manuscripts): bookplates to front pastedown and verso of title, and with Gifford's annotations, dated 3 August 1775, to preliminary leaves (including his note that this copy was "perfected from one in the Museum & another in Sion Colledge Library, neither of which is as perfect as this now is"); bequeathed to the Library of the Baptist College, Bristol: bookplate, "Bapt. Museum Bristol | Gifford" lettered in gilt to lower compartment of spine, and shelfmarks (X.d.12 and 89d); manuscript facsimile leaf at end of text copied by John Sidney Hawkins (1758-1842), son of Sir John Hawkins and reclusive antiquary, whose "talents were overshadowed by a sour and jealous temper" (obituary in The Gentleman's Magazine); annotation dated 9 October 1851 noting the presence of the two facsimile leaves ("Of the last two pages of this table the former is a complete Fac-simile, the latter is a copy")