[BASKERVILLE BIBLE.] The Holy Bible, containing the Old Testament and the New: translated out of the original tongues, and with the former translations diligently compared and revised, by His Majesty’s special command. Appointed to be read in churches. Cambridge: Printed by John Baskerville, printer to the University. 1763.
Royal folio (497 x 325 x 83 mm). Contemporary full diced russia, covers gilt tooled with a wide border of dog-tooth, floral and dotted rolls, the repeated use of 6 different floral tools and a chalice with two doves, olive green morocco oval onlay to each corner, tooled in gilt with “IHS” monogram, surmounted by a cross above three nails, and small cherubs’ heads, stars and flowers and surrounded with flame tools; spine elaborately gilt in compartments with green morocco lettering piece, marbled endpapers, gilt edges, purple silk place-markers; ff. [573], with 8 engraved plates and 1 loosely inserted plate, all from later Birmingham Baskerville Bibles; expertly rebacked by James Brockman, preserving the original spine, extremities and corners repaired, boards and spine lightly sunned and rubbed; title very lightly dust-soiled with small loss at upper inner corner (repaired), light, variable damp-stain to lower edges, esp. of the last few leaves, but overall a very good and clean copy; contemporary armorial bookplate of Fielding Best Fynney to front pastedown (see below).
A handsome, extra-illustrated copy of the Baskerville Bible, highpoint in English eighteenth-century printing, with contemporary provenance, and preserved in a striking and unusual contemporary binding.
The 1763 edition of John Baskerville’s Bible has long been recognised as the printer’s “magnum opus and his most magnificent as well as his most characteristic specimen” (Reed, p. 279). The edition was limited to 1,250 copies, of which 556 were remaindered in 1768 and purchased by the London bookseller R. Baldwin at 36 shillings each (Birmingham Gazette, 1 January 1770). By 1771, Baldwin was advertising copies in sheets at three guineas (ibid., 14 October 1771).
Copies of the Baskerville Bible in contemporary bindings are seldom encountered. The present binding is particularly notable for its green oval morocco onlays to the corners of each board, an uncommon feature, and for the unique chalice-and-doves tool, which are unknown to us on any other binding of the period. Interestingly, the oval onlays are gilt-tooled with the same devices that constitute the emblem of the Jesuit order (the “IHS” monogram, surmounted by a cross and above three nails, the whole surrounded by a sunburst). While visually associated with the Catholic order, this motif was widely used in English eighteenth-century Bible bindings and does not indicate a Jesuit provenance.
This copy is bound with eight engraved plates from the 1769 Birmingham edition of the Baskerville Bible and also contains one cut-down and loosely inserted plate from the 1772 edition. It is very likely that Baldwin added the bound-in illustrations to enhance the appeal of the 1763 edition and improve its commercial prospects. Of the three known versions of the subscribers’ list, this copy includes the variant ending with the name of “the Hon. Charles York, Esq., Attorney General”.
Provenance: From the library of Fielding Best Fynney (c. 1743-1806), a surgeon at Leek, in Staffordshire, and correspondent to the Royal Society of London. In a case reported in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (vol. 67, December 1777), Best Fynney successfully treated an enterocutaneous fistula (a pathological connection between the colon and the skin) arising from an untreated appendicitis (“The Case of Ann Davenport”).
Gaskell 26; ESTC T93106. See Reed, A History of the Old English Letter Foundries.
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