Beschreibung:

BIBLE, in English. The English Bible containing the Old Testament & the New translated out of the original tongues by the special command of His Majesty King James the First and now reprinted with the text revised by a collation of its early and other principal editions and edited by the late Rev. F. H. Scrivener ... for the Syndics of the University Press Cambridge . Hammersmith: The Doves Press [printed by T. J. Cobden-Sanderson and Emery Walker], 1903-05. 2 (335 x 230mm). Opening initials in red designed by Edward Johnston part of Psalm 106 printed in red. (Some light spotting in volume I and the earlier part of volume II, G4v and G5r of vol. I slightly soiled at lower margin, large brown spot at lower margin of M4 in volume IV.) Original limp vellum, spines with title and volume number in gilt, each volume in red solander cloth box. With a loosely-inserted 7-line letter from Cobden-Sanderson, dated the Doves Press, London, 8 October 1917, to an unnamed gentleman, stating that he has 'pleasure in sending' two Doves Press publications, of which he supplies the details. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES ON PAPER, published at 15 guineas. The Doves Press was founded by Cobden-Sanderson and Emery Walker in 1900, taking its name from Doves Place, a passageway leading to the Upper Mall, Hammersmith, where the Doves Bindery was established in 1893, and to where the press moved from No. 1 The Terrace Hammersmith in 1909. The type, of a lighter face than that used at the Kelmscott Press, was copied from Jenson's Pliny (1476) by Emery Walker while the paper, in common with that of the Kelmscott Press, was obtained from Joseph Batchelor. It was thinner than Kelmscott paper but made of the same unbleached linen rags and sized in animal size. 51 books were printed at the press before its closure in 1916, Cobden-Sanderson ensuring that it could never be revived by throwing the type and matrices into the Thames in 1917. He described the English Bible as 'a supreme achievement of English literature, if not of English thought,' and the Doves Bible is unquestionably the supreme achievment of his press. In Franklin's words, 'nothing is so stark and pure, such unbending art as the Doves Bible ... it remains, as all the other Doves press books, formal and formidable. there is not one illustration, no experiment with woodcut or border, from the start ... to its close.' Tomkinson Bibliography of Modern Presses [Doves] 6; Franklin Private Presses , pp. 118-119. (5)