CONTINENTAL BOOKS

BIBLE FOR HUGUENOTS IN ENGLAND
7. [BIBLE.] La Bible, qui est toute la Sainte Escriture du
Vieil et du Nouveau Testament. Autrement, l’ancienne et la
nouvelle alliance. Le tout reveu et conferé sur les textes
hebreux et grecs. Avec les Pseaumes de David, mis en rime
françoise par Cl. Marot et Theod. de Beze. London, R.
Everingham for R. Bentley and J. Hindmarsh, 1687.
Small 8vo, pp. [1018], with an engraved additional title; bound
without the Apocrypha (see below); manuscript hymns in
German in an early hand on two blank leaves at end;
contemporary English black morocco richly gilt, covers tooled
with an attractive all-over design of drawer-handles, pansies
and leaves, comb-marbled endleaves, gilt edges; minor wear,
corners a little bumped, one or two tiny areas of retouching.
£5750
First complete edition of the Bible in French to be printed
in England, in a fine Restoration binding. This Bible, in the
French Geneva version, was published less than two years after
the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (22 October 1685) which
saw about 50,000 French Protestant refugees move to England
(the word ‘refugee’ entered the English language at this time).
The present copy is without the Apocrypha sometimes found at
the end of the Old Testament (as is the Bible Society copy; see
Darlow & Moule).
For a comparable binding, also apparently employing the same
distinctive pansy tool used here, see Maggs, Bookbinding in
the British Isles, part I, 1987, no. 95. See also G.D. Hobson,
English bindings 1490–1940 in the library of J.R. Abbey, no.
46.
Darlow & Moule 3771; Wing B2707A.