The Christian's Complete Family Bible; or, Universal Library of Divine Knowledge; Containing the Whole of the Sacred Texts of the Old and the New Testaments, with the Apocrypha at Large; Illustrated with Practical Notes and Observations from the Most Eminent Divines. The Whole Adorned with Fifty-Five Superb Embellishments, Designed and Executed by Artists of the First Estimated, Solely for This Work. Ormskirk: John Fowler, 1809.
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A lovely very large folio size antique King James Bible beautifully illustrated throughout with fifty-five plates which were designed specifically for this edition. This is a very readable edition, despite its large size, and has lovely typography. Also of note is the binding, which is in nice reverse calf. We also interestingly find the original owner's name on a tooled morocco label to the spine. It is very rare to come across big folio Bibles like this where the original owner is known and subsequently we can also know that this is who the book was bound for given the tooled label.
VERY RARE, not located in Herbert's bibliography of printed English Bibles.
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Size: 277 x 440 x 100 mm (approx.)
Condition:
[frontis, t.p., i-iv, A1-10E2 (OT), 13A2-14X2 (Apocrypha), frontis, t.p., 10F1-13A1 (NT), a1-f2 (index)]
Contemporary full reverse calf with blind tooled boards, the rear being slightly uneven and thus a bit charming. Retains red and black tooled morocco labels to the spine. Binding rubbed, areas where the leather is peeling a little bit but can easily be reglued. Wear to the rear board with some areas of loss and some discoloured scratches. Shelf wear with a little loss to the corners. Joints a little rubbed, very slightly cracked at the foot of the rear, but with both boards securely attached, the binding secure and without shelf lean. Hinges reinforced. Without any attached bookplates but with an ownership inscription to the front blank. Generally very clean throughout text block but toned as typical, some leaves creased including the main title page, occasional offsetting to the verso pages of plates, with some plate leaves a little more toned than others, but generally very nice internally. Some plates are torn at the edges, none affecting the actual illustration. The plate for Genesis 22 has been repaired with very slight loss at one edge. A very nice large antique King James Bible.
The apocrypha is bound after the Old Testament as usually but the collation calls for it to be bound after the New Testament, but this clearly has not happened in this case. Nonetheless, each section collates as complete, including the index.
[OCLC 20406602].
