Bible in English, New Testament, translated by Tyndale, [?London, 1549], later black morocco

Bible. New Testament. English. Tyndale's version

[The Newe Testament of oure Saveour Jesus Christ translated by M. Wil. Tyndall... ?London, 1549]

8vo (141 x 85mm.), 35 lines of text plus headlines, woodcut initials, h1_h8 present in two versions (one version reset with a different type in 34 lines of text), P2-T7 misbound after L1, with a leaf from another work bound at end (see footnote), nineteenth-century blind-tooled black morocco, metal corner-pieces, two clasps, lacking 18 leaves of preliminaries (before Tyndale's preface to the Christian reader on A1), text leaves T1_8, b1_8, h3_6 and all after y6 (48 leaves), generally soiled, some fraying throughout, upper hinge broken, lacking one strap and one corner-piece on upper cover

TYNDALE'S NEW TESTAMENT. William Tyndale's influential translation of the Bible into English cost him his life; he was burned at the stake in Antwerp in 1536 on the orders of Charles V and with the approval of Henry VIII. Tyndale, in the manner of Erasmus (and indeed using Erasmus's editions of the Greek text), had based his text on the Greek rather than the Vulgate to ensure greater fidelity to the original meaning. His New Testament was first printed in 1526 in Worms as it could not be printed or even owned in England (book burnings were organised at Smithfield by the bishop of London, Cuthbert Tunstall, a close friend of Erasmus), but the number of reprints show that there was certainly sufficient demand for copies. Tyndale revised his text for an edition printed in Antwerp in 1534, in which his preface "to the Christian reader" appears for the first time.

There are numerous early editions recorded of Tyndale's New Testament, many of them recorded in few copies and with only small differences between them. This is one of the editions considered to have been issued in London in 1549, with the young Edward VI on the throne and a more positive political climate towards English Bibles. The type used in the reset pages in quire h indicates the likely involvement of the printers John Day and William Seres, who also issued a folio Bible in this year. Herbert thought that the bulk of the book was probably printed in Antwerp in 1534 and that it was subsequently reissued in London with these new leaves and a dated title-page.

Tyndale's influence on the English language can be considered equivalent to that of Martin Luther on German through his contemporaneous bible translations. Tyndale's contribution, however, was less visible; his language was used in later English Bibles but without acknowledgement.

Bound in at the end is a leaf containing a poem, "The Poesie of Epictetus... Sustaine and Refraine", by James Sanford, printed in 1567, leaf f5 (STC 10423).

The section lacking at the end contains most of Revelation (the only illustrated section of this edition), the start of which appears on y6 verso, and the table of Epistles and Gospels for Sarum use.

LITERATURE:

DMH 79; ESTC S12202 (listing 13 copies); STC 2856

PROVENANCE:

"Presented to Dr Vaughan Hughes by Mrs Grimshaw as being a very favorite volume with the late Revd T.S. Grimshaw, June 1837", inscription on flyleaf; by family descent