1597 Geneva 'Breeches' Bible: The Old and New Testament, with Apocrypha, Bound Together with Two Concordances and The Whole Book of Psalmes

Thick 4to. 8 5/8 x 6 3/4. 552, [82] ff., 91, [9] pp. Bible is foliated, concordance leaves are unnumbered, book of psalms is paginated. Full leather with intricate hand tooling, year of publication in gilt on spine base. Two column format with marginal columns containing printed gloss and textual references. Decorative initials begin each book. An attractive example of the Geneva Bible, also known as the Breeches Bible (taken from Genesis iii:7), which incorporates The Old (1597) and New (1599) Testaments (including the Apocrypha), Two Concordances (undated), and The Whole Book of Psalmes by Thomas Sternhold (1599). This version of the scriptures was favored by early American colonists. Christopher Barker, the printer of this edition, was the printer to Queen Elizabeth I, and the founder of a three-generation printing dynasty. John Windet, the printer of the Sternhold metrical psalter, was sole printer of that work from 1591 until his death in 1610 or '11. The Geneva Bible, named for the city in which it was composed, is an important edition based on careful revisions of the original Hebrew and Greek, with the assistance of authoritative Latin, French and German versions. First released in England in 1560, it was printed in numerous editions for nearly 85 years, and is symbolic of the Protestant Reformation. It was carried by the Pilgrims on their Atlantic voyage and referenced in Shakespeare's work.