Bible in English and Latin. New Testament [Coverdale Diglot]

Small 8vo (5 7/8 x 4 1/8 in.; 149 x 105 mm). Title printed in red and black within a border composed of 4 woodcuts and one inverted ornamental woodcut headpiece, woodcut text illustration of St. Jerome in his study (A1r), woodcut initials, text in parallel columns (outer columns in English in black letter, inner columns in Latin in roman type); seamless old repair to title-page verso, a few headlines shaved in quire KK and a few fore-edges shaved just touching sidenotes, tiny repair to upper corner of MM2.  Eighteenth-century speckled calf, double-filleted gilt border, gilt-ruled smooth spine with black morocco lettering piece, marbled endpapers, edges stained yellow; rebacked. Linen folding case.

Formatting the Word of God 8.4; STC 2818.5; ESTC S90890; cf. Herbert 39

A complete and perfectly preserved copy, one of only two known of the reissue of Coverdale's Diglot, with the cancel title-page. Before Coverdale left London for Paris in the spring of 1538 to work on the Great Bible, he authorized James Nicolson to publish a New Testament with the Vulgate text and his own English version side by side. The book appeared in quarto format later that year, but was so rife with errors and misprints that Coverdale repudiated it. He subsequently prepared a new version to be printed by François Regnault, who was already working off the Great Bible. Regnault's octavo edition appeared in 1538 (STC 2817, locating ten copies). The collation of the present copy matches that of Regnault's edition and therefore must be considered a reissue, of which the only other known copy belongs to Corpus Christi College, Oxford University.