Pocket Holy Bible

$450.00
By Moons Rare Books

6B Holy Bible and Book of Common Prayer in Pocket Size. Oxford: University Press, 1853.

Notes

The printing history of the Bible began in the 1450s in Mainz, Germany, when Johannes Gutenberg used movable metal type to produce his 42-Line Latin Vulgate. This mechanical milestone ended the reliance on hand-copied monastic manuscripts and rapidly accelerated book production across Europe. The Bible quickly became a catalyst for linguistic shifts as scholars moved away from Latin to produce vernacular translations, most notably Martin Luther’s German Bible (1522) and William Tyndale's English New Testament (1526). The English text reached a major stabilization point in 1611 with the publication of the King James Version by Royal Printer Robert Barker. By the 19th century, technological advancements in steam-powered presses, stereotyping, and industrial papermaking allowed international Bible societies to transition the scriptures from a scarce luxury item into the most mass-produced book in global publishing history.
The pocket Bibles of the 1850s represented a major publishing trend focused entirely on maximizing the physical portability and personal accessibility of the scriptures for the Victorian public. Prior to the mid-19th century, family Bibles were typically massive, heavy tomes meant to remain stationary on a parlor table or a church lectern. Driven by the expansion of the railway system and a booming travel culture, pioneering institutions like the British and Foreign Bible Society and the American Bible Society utilized newly invented thin, durable paper stocks and specialized miniature typefaces to shrink the complete Old and New Testaments into true pocket-sized formats. Bound in flexible, robust leathers such as morocco or calfskin—often featuring protective gilt edges and metal clasps to survive transport—these 1850s pocket editions successfully transformed the Bible into an intimate, daily companion that could be easily carried to church, school, or on transatlantic journeys.
Description 
Red velvet binding with brass shied to upper cover and brass edges to extremities and brass closure clasp. All edges gilt. Red silk bookmark. Handwritten inscription to preliminary flyleaf dated Christmas 1853.
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