ENGLISH GREEN VELLUM
WITH ONLAYS À LA FANFARE
[BIBLE.]
The Holy Bible, containing the Old Testament and the New, newly translated out of the originall Tongues and with the former Translations diligently compared and revised by his Majesties speciall Command. Appointed to be read in Churches.
[Cambridge,] Printed by Roger Daniel, Printer to the Universitie of Cambridge, 1648.
[Bound with:]
[PSALMS.] The whole Book of Psalms, collected into English Metre, by Thomas Sternhold, John Hopkins, and others … [Cambridge,] Printed by Roger Daniel, Printer to the Universitie of Cambridge, 1648.
Two works in one vol., 18mo, pp. Bible: [864], Psalms: [72]; A-Z18, Aa18, 2A-B18; title copper-engraved within architectural border with full-length figures of Moses and Aaron, vignette panorama of London at foot, with part-title to New Testament; bound in near-contemporary English green vellum with geometrical onlays in red and citron morocco, richly gilt, spine gilt in compartments, edges gilt, gauffered, and painted to a floral design with a rabbit to top-edge, stork and squirrel to fore-edge, and a swan to tail-edge, sewn bypass on 4 cords; cracks to joints and chipping to spine, a few losses to onlays, textblock a little shaken causing some rubbing to edges; ink ownership inscriptions to front free endpaper (see below).
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The Holy Bible, containing the Old Testament and the New, newly translated out of the originall Tongues and with the former Translations diligently compared and revised by his Majesties speciall Command. Appointed to be read in Churches.
A seemingly unrecorded Cambridge-printed Bible with metrical Psalms in an elaborate English binding of gilt green vellum with morocco onlays and highly unusual gilt and gauffered edges painted with flowers, birds, and animals.
The Cambridge printer Roger Daniel is notable for his pains in printing textually correct Bibles, with his folio of 1638 ‘considered by many to be the best edition of the English Bible ever produced’ and providing the standard text until 1762 (Crick & Walsham, p. 138). Daniel issued a large number of editions in varying formats over the following two decades, with the present pocket-sized octodecimo accompanied by an engraved architectural title featuring a vignette view of London and Old St Paul’s.
The taste for – and technique of producing – green vellum was brought to England from France with Charles II at the Restoration, and a further French influence can here be seen in the imitation of à la fanfare bindings, with a fine filigree of small floral and foliate tools filling geometric compartments across the boards. While French bindings in this style are more common, English examples are markedly rarer. The gilt and gauffered edges feature a striking painted design including, hidden among a variety of flowers, a swan, a stork, a squirrel, and a white rabbit.
Provenance:
‘Ely Fedderman / her Booke / 1667’; ‘Ely Roberts / Her Booke / 1684’; ‘William Roberts / His Booke / 1699’; ‘Elizabeth Roberts / Her Book / 172¾’; ‘Elisa Ann Roberts / 1849’; ‘Adelaide Charlotte Roberts / 1897’; ‘Mrs Reginald Fowden / Née Julia Roberts / 1899’.
Bible: Not in ESTC; see ESTC R210260 and R223599 for other octodecimo Bibles printed by Daniel in the same year. Psalms: ESTC R17523 (reporting 70 pp.). See Crick & Walsham, The Uses of Script and Print, 1300-1700 (2004).
