Holy Bible 1822

6B Complete with Old and New Testaments. Edinburgh: Printed by Sir D Hunter Blair and J Bruce, 1822. 

Notes

The Holy Bible has been one of the most widely printed books in history, with the advent of the printing press in the fifteenth century—most notably the Gutenberg Bible—marking a turning point in its dissemination. Over the centuries, English translations such as the King James Version of 1611 became central to religious life in the English-speaking world. By the nineteenth century, advances in industrial printing and publishing greatly increased the availability of Bibles, allowing them to be produced in a wide range of formats. This period saw a shift from purely ecclesiastical texts to volumes intended for personal and household use, reflecting both the growing literacy of the population and the importance of the Bible as a fixture in everyday family life.

During the nineteenth century, advances in printing technology and the expansion of commercial publishing led to a remarkable increase in the production of Bibles and prayer books. Improvements in typesetting, paper production, and binding allowed publishers to produce both affordable household editions and finely crafted personal copies. Many volumes from this period were issued with decorative leather bindings, gilt-edged pages, elaborate tooling, and marbled endpapers, reflecting the Victorian appreciation for craftsmanship and beauty in bookmaking. As a result, Bible and prayer book editions from the 1800s often combine devotional significance with the artistry of the period’s bookbinding traditions, making them both meaningful religious texts and finely produced examples of nineteenth-century printing and binding.

Description

Maroon morocco heavily decorated in blind with a single fillet gilt boarder. Spine with gothic design in blind and lettered in gilt. Rubbing to head and foot of spine. Some scuffing. All edges gilt. Front pastedown with binders ticket of James Brash & Co., Glasgow. Some staining and repair to title page but otherwise very good internally. Pasted down note at beginning of book stating “This Bible was int he possession of the Oldham family for about 130 years. J. H. Oldham. June 4th, 1957.”