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Lot Number
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29
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Title
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THE NEWE TESTAMENT YET ONCE AGAYNE CORRECTED BY WILLYAM TYNDALE: WHERE UNTO IS ADDED A NECESSARYE TABLE...
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Year Published
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1536
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Place Printed
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[ANTWERP?: M. CROM?] PRYNTED IN THE YERE OF OURE LORDE,
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Description
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FROM THE LIBRARY OF MR JOHN WOLFSON BIBLE, ENGLISH, NEW TESTAMENT. THE NEWE TESTAMENT YET ONCE AGAYNE CORRECTED BY WILLYAM TYNDALE: WHERE UNTO IS ADDED A NECESSARYE TABLE...[ANTWERP?: M. CROM?] PRYNTED IN THE YERE OF OURE LORDE, 1536 4to (221 x 148mm.), the "Mole" edition of Tyndale's translation (woodcut on t1 recto with foot of St. Paul resting on figure of a mole, possibly a reference to the sign of the publisher G. van der Haghen), black letter, titles within woodcut border, approximately 120 woodcut illustrations in the text including some after Durer's "Apocalypse", cut of the Royal Arms (with greyhound and dragon as supporters) on final page, contemporary manuscript notes on x8 recto, y8 recto and also to some leaves of the table at the end, contemporary rough calf over wooden boards, red edges, preserved in cloth slipcase, lacking 4 preliminary leaves and first leaf of text A1, and also C4 from The Epistle to Philemon (all supplied in expert facsimile), some minor staining to last leaves, spine and hinges repaired, still an unusually tall, clean copy
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Lot Note
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DMH 19; STC 2832 (10 copies, including this one) The Howard-Harmsworth copy of the rare "Mole" edition: only two other copies of this edition (one a made-up copy, the other highly defective) have been sold at auction since 1976. Three distinct quarto editions of Tyndale's New Testament were printed in the year he was martyred (1536). They are chiefly distinguished by the variations in the woodcut of St. Paul on t1 recto: the Apostle's foot rests on a stone, which in one edition is blank, in another bears the engraver's mark A.K.B., and in another (as here) rests on a mole (or possibly hedgehog). Although there appears to be no absolutely conclusive evidence to show the order of publication various small differences suggest that the "Mole " edition was the first, and the "Blank Stone" the last, of the three. Forty-eight distinct blocks were used for the 122 illustrations present in a complete copy. Tyndale's New Testament in English, philologically sound and careful and largely derived from the Greek Testament of Erasmus, was of course bitterly opposed by the ecclesiastical authorities and many copies were burned. Since its publication, however, it has dominated all successive translations right up to modern times, with nine-tenths of the Authorised Version itself derived from his work. "...Our own age can only by an effort of imagination grasp the full impact of the vernacular Bible upon a generation more ardent and narrow in its Christianity than our own...It is hard indeed to recapture that blissful sense of release and new awakening'' (Dickens, The English Reformation).
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Provenance
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"Mary Bowes her Booke", early contemporary ownership signature on a2 recto; ? her descendant Henry Bowes [Howard], 4th Earl of Berkshire, armorial bookplate dated 1720; Earl Amherst, armorial bookplate; Sir R. Leicester Harmsworth, sale of his library, eighth portion, Sotheby's, 8 July 1946, lot 2397; Robin Howard, C.B.E., sale of books formerly in his library, Sotheby's, 1 March 1976, lot 140
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Estimated Price
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GBP 60,000.00 - 80,000.00( USD 96000.00 - USD 128000.00)
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Actual Price
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GBP 91,250.00 ( USD 146000.00)
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