(Bible in English) — Francis Fry | Fry's personal copy of Tyndale's New Testament

(Bible in English) — Francis Fry (ed.)

The First New Testament Printed in the English Language (1525 or 1526) Translated from the Greek by William Tyndale Reproduced in Facsimile. Edited by Francis Fry. Bristol: Printed for the Editor, 1862

Large 4to (230 x 170 mm). Printed on vellum, woodcut title ornament, 13 illuminated miniatures and many initials in gold, blue, and red; one or two instances of scattered spotting, some toning to a few leaves, final gathering bound out of order. Full dark blue morocco by Zaehnsdorf, knotwork design tooled in gilt with red and green inlay, with Fry's name in gilt to lower board, spine with raised bands in six compartments with similar red and green motif, gilt-dentelle turn-ins, edges gilt; extremities rubbed with some minor loss.

Francis Fry's personal copy of his illuminated reproduction of Tyndale's bible—one of only "a few copies" on vellum and rare in this size.

Francis Fry's career spanned several disparate avenues: he ran a booming chocolate business, advocated for abolition through his Quaker faith, and amassed a large collection of bibles, becoming a leading bibliographer in the field. Fry sought to increase access to the various editions in his collection, and faithfully lithographed the present facsimile from a copy of Tyndale's 1526 New Testament, formerly held at Bristol Bible College and now at the British Library.

Fry produced a total of 177 copies, mostly in small octavo formats. In his introduction, Fry explains that just 26 were issued in quarto format, and since "it was by no means uncommon for the early printers to work off some copies of their works on vellum, and as we have many examples of the Holy Scriptures having been so printed, a few copies have been taken off on this material" (17). A penciled note on the flyleaf of a copy sold at Christie's in 2000 claimed that there were "only 7 done on vellum," though that example was in octavo format.

A very clean copy with large margins. We locate no other vellum copies in this size at auction.

REFERENCES

Herbert 1936

PROVENANCE

Francis Fry (signature to p. 18, dated 3 Mo. 1862 in Cotham, Bristol) — thence by descent through the Fry family — acquired by the present owner