A Baskerville Bible in a handsome trade binding

Lot 32

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Doyle

175 E 87th Street
New York, NY 10128
United States

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About Auction

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Rare Books, Autographs & Maps

By Doyle

Nov 25, 2025

Set Reminder 2025-11-25 10:00:00 2025-11-25 10:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Rare Books, Autographs & Maps https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/doyle/rare-books-autographs-maps-21321 Auction of Rare Books, Autographs & Maps on Tuesday, November 25, 2025 at 10am Consignments Are Currently Being Accepted for Future Auctions We Invite You to Contact Us for a Complimentary Auction Evaluation of Your Collection Doyle info@doyle.com

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Lot Description

[BASKERVILLE BIBLE] The Holy Bible, containing the Old Testament and the New; with the Apocrypha: Translated out of the Original Tongues, with annotations. Birmingham: John Baskerville, 1763. Second Baskerville edition, with a separate title page for the New Testament dated 1771. Late 18th-century morocco with a thick gilt border of vases, vines, falcons, and flowers surrounding an inlaid medallion of black morocco bearing gilt-stamped cherubs' heads and stars with a central IHS Christogram motif. Spine richly gilt in seven compartments with a black leather title label and another label bearing the name of Nathaniel Turner of Stoke Hall, 11 x 17½ inches (27½ x 44 cm); 572 leaves, plates. Binding worn, with scratches and a few deeper gouges to both covers. Rubbed at head and tail of the spine. Chipping to both spine labels with loss to their text. Hinges a bit tender but holding. Poor quality paper toned and softened with age; foxed throughout, with offsetting to pages facing the engravings. A very few short marginal tears. A handsome decorated binding executed for the booming Bible trade. In 1768, Baskerville was semi-retired in Birmingham when a rival, Nicholas Boden, set to work on a folio Bible. Baskerville, who had printed his handsome Cambridge Bible just five years before, must have felt that his toes were being stepped on, so he immediately began production on a new folio Bible to rival Boden's. A controversy ensued between the two printers, with each circulating handbills and newspaper advertisements to criticize the other's materials, methods, and quality of work. Without the patronage of the University of Cambridge and rushing to complete his Bible before Boden, Baskerville wasn't able to match the quality of his earlier folio Bible in the Birmingham bible of 1769-72. For example, although Baskerville claimed in an advertisement launched as part of his war against Boden that the new Bible was printed on "superfine Demy Writing Paper," costing "Fifteen Shillings and sixpence per Ream in London," Philip Gaskell points out that "this paper is certainly not a superfine Writing Demy, as is shown by the watermarks and the size, as well as by the quality, and if Baskerville paid fifteen and six a ream for it he was robbed." The binding here is a typical, though rather pretty, binding executed for the Bible trade in the late 18th century. Nathaniel Turner of Stoke Hall in Ipswich, the son of a wealthy merchant and part of the somewhat novel class of upwardly-mobile country gentlemen, would have been the target audience for this type of book. ESTC T93103. Straus & Dent 79. Gaskell 35. See also Straus & Dent's Appendix II, "The Birmingham Bibles Controversy (1769-70)."

Condition

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