39
●
(BIBLE IN ENGLISH.)
[The Christian’s New and Complete Family Bible.]
23 of 27 plates. Folio, contemporary calf, worn; lacking general title page, moderate foxing
and wear, some repairs; Tweed-Vanneman family register on verso of New Testament
frontispiece.
[Philadelphia, PA?] and Berwick, England[?]:
[William Woodhouse?], [1788-90?]
[300/400]
We have traced two copies of this Bible on the market in the past century. One sold at a fairly
well-known auction house in 1996 for $115, where it was described simply as printed in
Berwick, England. The other copy is (as of this writing) offered for $85,000 by a reputable
book dealer, who describes it as America’s first folio Bible AND first illustrated Bible.
On 15 November 1788, Philadelphia publisher William Woodhouse began selling subscrip-
tions for this Bible (or another Bible with the same name) in the Pennsylvania Packet, and
made his final announcement of the completion of Part 77 on 26 May 1790. The general title
page (missing here) carried an imprint line reading either “Printed for the Proprietors; and Sold
by all the Booksellers in the United States: Philadelphia” or “Berwick: Printed by and for
John Taylor”—copies have been found either way. In all copies, the additional title page preceding
the New Testament reads “Berwick: Printed by and for John Taylor.” Hills concludes that
“there seems to be some evidence that the whole Bible was printed in England.” It was at the
very least produced exclusively for the American market. Some argue that the entirety was
printed in Philadelphia. See Antiquarian Bookman, 19 January 1952, page 411, which
announces Whitman Bennett’s assertion that this is “an American Bible of considerable
importance . . . the first folio printing in America of the Old Testament; first American printing
of the Apocrypha in English; and the first American Bible to be issued with a frontispiece.”
These claims were disputed by Edwin Rumball-Petre in the 1 March 1952 issue, page 972.
Are we offering a defective and not particularly early English Bible? Or do we have a scarce
work of breathtaking importance to American printing history? You can be the judge. Evans
20960; Hills 16; O’Callaghan, pages xxiv-xliii; Sabin 12929; 3 institutions hold copies per
ESTC, all in America.
