The Bible, with the Apocrypha: King James Version (Folio Society Limited Edition)

[HOLY BIBLE] (ed. David Norton). The Bible, with the Apocrypha: King James Version. London: The Folio Society, 2011. 2 vols.

Large 4to (280 × 192 mm). Both volumes bound in full blue-grey goatskin leather, blocked in gold with a design by Stephen Raw. Spine titled in gilt. All edges gilt. Blue-grey endpapers. Two ribbon markers (gold and blue) to each volume. Chapter and page numbers, running titles, and chapter headings printed in red throughout. Vol. I: From Genesis to Solomon, xxxv, 884 pp; Vol. II: Isaiah to Revelation, vi, 885–1868 pp. Housed together in a wooden slipcase covered in dark blue-grey buckram, lined with cream moiré silk, with sliding tray. Deluxe limited edition. Limited to 1,000 numbered copies for sale, plus 20 lettered copies not for sale, this being number 81. Text: The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible with the Apocrypha, edited by David Norton, Cambridge University Press.

The King James Bible, first published in 1611, is by any measure the single most influential book in the English language. Commissioned by James I shortly after his accession to the English throne, and produced over seven years by six committees of scholars working from the original Hebrew and Greek texts alongside earlier English translations, it was intended to settle the theological and political disputes that had attended earlier versions and to provide a single authorised text for the Church of England. It succeeded in that immediate purpose and vastly exceeded it in its lasting one: the cadences of the King James Bible have shaped English prose style for four centuries, its phrases have entered the language so completely that most speakers use them without any awareness of their biblical origin, and its influence on English literature, from Milton to the present day, is inseparable from the history of the language itself.

This Folio Society edition, produced to mark the four hundredth anniversary of the Bible's original publication in 1611, presents the text as established by David Norton, general editor of the New Cambridge Paragraph Bible and the world's leading contemporary authority on the textual history of the King James Version. Norton spent more than a decade working to restore the text as closely as possible to what the original 1611 translators actually wrote and intended, correcting the accumulated errors, inconsistent spellings, and editorial interventions that had crept into the text across four centuries of subsequent printing. He has described the labour as resembling "the cleaning of an old master" — the removal of centuries of accumulated varnish and retouching to reveal the original work beneath.

Near fine. Some mild foxing present to gilt edges, though very minor. Otherwise fine throughout.

Please note: This is a large and heavy two-volume set. Additional postage costs may apply. If so, we will contact you after purchase.

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Catalogue Number: HH000662