[BIBLE]

(ad 1) The Booke of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments... London: Robert Barker and Assigns of John Bill, 1636; bound with (ad 2) J. S. [i.e. John Speed] The Genealogies recorded in the Sacred Scriptures... [London: s.n., 1636]; (ad 3) The Bible containing the Old Testament and the New... London: Robert Barker and John Bill, 1636; and (ad 4) STERNHOLD, THOMAS; JOHN HOPKINS and others. The Whole Book of Psalmes: Collected into English Meeter... London: Printed by G. M[iller] for the Company of Stationers. Period brown morocco over boards tooled in gilt, with two very elaborate silver {?] cornerpieces with cherubs, and a pair of clasps with Biblical figures, the inside of the latter engraved in italic with the name of an early (or perhaps the first) owner: "Ardria" (upper clasp) Smyth (lower clasp); old marbled paper on pastedowns. 6 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches (16.5 x 11 cm); unpaginated, ruled in two columns in red throughout. Collating (Ad I): A-F⁸ G⁴; (Ad 2): A-B⁸ C-D²; (Ad 3): A-3K⁸ ; (Ad 4): A-F⁸ G⁴. Rebacked retaining the original spine, the gilt on the covers largely rubbed away, signatures Z-2D standing slightly proud of the fore-edge and reaffixed when the binding was restored, but for all that a handsome copy in a binding exhibiting some unusual features. Internally, the book is generally quite clean; a small marginal loss was noted on 3F4, just affecting the text on the corner of the leaf, and a few other leaves have very minor defects.

A particularly appealing English seventeenth-century Bible, with elegant typography and (in the second work) wood-engraved illustrations, including a map of Canaan. The New Testament has a separate title page but collates continuously with the O.T. The unusual ownership indication on the interior of the clasps, which serve as a form of ex libris—presumably for a woman owner—is an uncommon and charming feature of this copy. Indeed, I cannot readily recall seeing a similarly marked set of binding clasps in five decades of bookselling. Darlow & Moule 391.