The Holy Bible [KJV]
bound after The Book of Common Prayer and before Sternhold and Hopkins, The Whole Booke of Psalmes. BCP: John Bill and Christopher Barker, 1665; Bible: Henry Hills and John Field, 1660; Psalmes: Company of Stationers, 1663. 8vo, full crushed black morocco richly gilt, boards with gilt floral borders, with internal onlaid red morocco corner pieces decorated in gilt, enclosing central red morocco lozenge wavy, decorated in gilt, with onlaid red morocco flowers at the corners, within four gilt teardrops edged with leaves, metal corner pieces in two and two clasps, spine gilt in compartments with onlaid decorative red morocco, gilt roll-tooled board edges, gilt roll-tooled turn-ins, a.e.g., marbled endpapers; text in double columns, ruled in red, decorative title to each section; unpaginated, signed BCP: A8-H8; OT: A8-2M8, 2N2; Apocrypha: A8-H8; NT: 2N3-8, 2O8-2Z8, 3A4; Sternhold: A8-F8.
The dating of this Bible brackets a series of highly important events in the development of the liturgy of the Church of England in the aftermath of the Civil War and Restoration. The BCP is dated 1665, positioning it post the critical revision of 1662. Amongst the debates which this edition touched were arguments between the Catholic and Presbyterian wings of the Church, with careful blurrings of the relationship between Consecration and Communion, further eroding Cranmer's certainties. In this dangerous period, a mere two years after the Restoration, such theological points were more than simple niceties and in part this edition was an effort to reaffirm a vision of the Church more in line with the Stuart one - as evinced by the prayers for Charles, King and Martyr, the Restoration, and the Deliverance from the Gunpowder Plot. Although there is the usual Sternhold and Hopkins, the BCP does feature a psalter, in this case using the magnificent poetry of the Coverdale translations.

The Bible dates from the year of the Restoration, 1660, and is the King James Version of the text. Hills and Field purchased Oxford's right to publish Bibles for four years for £80 on 7th July 1660. Interestingly, the Apocrypha is separately paginated and breaks the continuous pagination of the Old and New Testament. It does not have a title-page (and does not seem to require one according to the signatures) even though both Old and New Testaments have separate titles and (identical) imprints.

The book is in a handsome binding in a typical period style, featuring elaborate corner-pieces enclosing a central decorative lozenge - a style typified by the work of Browne and Mearne. The item as a whole is a liturgically significant moment captured in an archetypal binding. (See Lot 6 for KJV) Herbert 669 (but with inserted Apocrypha as 670).