Notes and Queries, Number 239, May 27, 1854: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.Various
History
Notes and Queries, Number 239, May 27, 1854: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
In 1833 the authorities of the Clarendon Press put forth a quarto reprint,
word for word, page for page, and letter for letter, of the _first_ large
black-letter folio edition of 1611, of the present authorised or Royal
version of the Bible. So accurate was it, that even manifest errors of the
press were retained. It was published that the reader might judge whether
the original standard could still be exactly followed. It was accompanied
by a collation with a _smaller_ black-letter folio of 1613, in preference
to the larger folio of that year, as no two copies (entire) of the latter
could be found, all the sheets of which corresponded precisely:
"Many of these copies contain sheets belonging, as may clearly be
proved, to editions of more recent date; and even those which appear to
be still as they were originally published, are made up partly from the
edition printed at the time, and partly from the remains of earlier
impressions."
Now this is a most interesting subject to all lovers of our dear old
English Bible. It is supposed the translators revised their work for the
1613 edition (after two years); yet the collation with the _small_ folio of
that year, shows little or no improvement, rather the contrary. I possess a
small quarto edition of 1613 (black-letter, by Barker), not mentioned by
our more eminent bibliographers, which, while admitting the better
corrections, adheres to the old 1611 folio, where the _small_ folio of 1613
unnecessarily deviates. It is certainly, I consider, a most valuable
impression. I have lately purchased a magnificent copy of the _great_ folio
of 1613. It is in the original thick oak binding, with huge brass clasps,
corners, and bosses; and appears to have been chained to a reading-desk. In
collating it, I find a sheet or two in 1 Samuel and St. Matthew most
carefully supplied from an earlier impression. The titles both to the Old
and New Testaments are exactly the same as those of the folio 1611, with
the exception of the date 1613 for 1611. It has been gloriously used, and
the imagination revels in the thought of the eyes and hearts that must have
been blessed by its perusal. I am not sufficiently conversant with our
earlier translations to identify, without reference, the sheets of the
inserted edition, and I have not time to refer. I may only say that there
is a most quaint woodcut of little David slinging a stone at the giant
Goliath. A slight collation of Genesis shows me this large edition agrees
in corrections with the small one the Clarendon Press authorities used,
though my quarto 1613 differs, adhering, as I said before, more closely to
the original standard of 1611. I would put a Query or two to your many
readers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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