The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments: Together with the Apocrypha: Translated out of the Original Tongues, with the Former Translations diligently Compared and Revised By the Special Command of King James I, of England.

Item Number: 142559

Printed at the Press in Worcester, Massachusetts: Isaiah Thomas, 1791.

The first quarto edition of the Holy Bible printed in America, printed by Isaiah Thomas, one of the most important printers of the early Republic. Quarto, bound in full early morocco with five raised bands to the spine, later morocco spine label lettered in gilt, discreetly rebacked, illustrated with two frontispieces and with numerous plates. Printed by Isaiah Thomas who also printed the first folio edition of the Holy Bible in America that same year. In very good condition with the frontispiece trimmed and laid down, title remargined, occasional closed tears and marginal chipping in places, some plates with chipped margins, lacking between title and Genesis, two leaves bound out of place in concordance at rear. Rare.

Referred to as the “Baskerville of America" by Benjamin Franklin, Isaiah Thomas was one of the most notable Bible publishers in the early Republic. “Thomas was the leading publisher of his day. His printing establishment in Worcester eventually employed 150 persons and included seven presses, a paper mill, and bindery... He is still famous for his more than a hundred children’s books of which he published tens of thousands of copies" (Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography). In planning his 1791 folio Bible, Thomas made a special effort to print the "most correct text" and examined over thirty copies of the King James Version. He issued a folio and a quarto Bible simultaneously (immediately after the ratification of the Bill of Rights) which "were without doubt far in advance of any other publications of the same kind that had appeared in America in point of typography, excellence of paper, binding, and general execution” (Wright, Early Bibles of America,74).