[Rarebooks] FS: The Great Polyglot Bibles

[Karen Howell]

Offered today, $ 450, trade discount applies.

HALL, Basil.  The Great Polyglot Bibles, Including a Leaf from the Complutensian of Acala, 1514-17.  San Francisco: The Book Club of California, 1966.  Series: Publications of the Book Club of California, No. 124. 

Folio.  381 x 272 mm (page size).  [5], [19], [6] ff.  Printed with decorations in black, red, and purple inks, facsimile title-page of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible, and a tipped in leaf of Ezekiel Chapters 21 and 22 from the original Bible of 1514-17, Basil Hall’s essay “A Treatise: The Great Polyglot Bibles,”; text clean, unmarked.  Sheets laid loose within textured wrappers with printed title on the front cover, and all placed within a clam-shell box covered in purple silk, printed top cover and spine labels printed on paper that matches the wrappers; box is in Very Good condition.  Ex Library copy with ms. spine number at foot of box spine, library stickers inside the box at front and rear, rubber stamp on the front of the wrapper, rubber stamps and pencil notation on the title page, the rest of the text is clean, unmarked.  Good

LIMITED EDITION of 400 copies, printed for the Book Club of California by Lewis and Dorothy Allen at the Allen Press.  This was the first book printed for the Club in the de luxe French style, with un-sewn sheets in a hinged box, and produced entirely by hand.  For the Allen Press, this book was the first hand-printed book in an edition of more than 150 copies and their first “leaf book.”  The book is designed to remain within the hinged box; when the box is opened flat, the book can be slid to the left and the pages turned at their fore-edge.  The text type face is Italian Old Style with early Spanish Roman types founded on Italian fifteenth-century designs.  The paper was printed damp on all rag paper from France, mold-made Rives for the text and handmade Richard de Bas for the red wrappers.  The edition was printed by hand on an 1830 Acorn-Smith hand-press.  Decorations principally from the Complutensian Bible, with others from early sixteenth-century Spanish books.  References: Allen Press Bibliography, No. 171; De Hamel and Silver, Disbound and Dispersed, No. 144 (catalog number 27); Harlan, The Two Hundredth Book, No. 124. 

This is one of the outstanding productions of the California-based Allen Press, with an original 16th century Bible leaf included, in this case, from Ezekiel Chapters 21 and 22.

Theseitem  can be viewed on the home page of my website: www.johnhowellforbooks.com at the bottom of the page, or a PDF can be downloaded using the following link:

www.johnhowellforbooks.com/home/polyglot.pdf

TERMS OF SALE: CWO, Credit Card or PayPal accepted.  Shipping charges: $ 10.00 insured media mail.  Returns accepted with advance notice, within 10 days. 


John Howell, ABAA, ILAB, IOBA

www.johnhowellforbooks.com

310 367-9720