BIBLE IN ENGLISH (MATTHEW’S VERSION) | [The Byble, that is to say all the holy Scripture: in whych are co[n]tayned the Olde and New Testamente, truly [and] purely tra[n]slated into English, [and] nowe lately with greate industry [and] dilige[n]ce recognised. London: By (S. Mierdman for) Ihon Daye, and William Seres, 1549]

BIBLE IN ENGLISH (MATTHEW’S VERSION)

[The Byble, that is to say all the holy Scripture: in whych are co[n]tayned the Olde and New Testamente, truly [and] purely tra[n]slated into English, [and] nowe lately with greate industry [and] dilige[n]ce recognised. London: By (S. Mierdman for) Ihon Daye, and William Seres, 1549]

Folio (10 3/4 x 7 3/8 in.; 272 x 188 mm). Black letter, text in two columns, woodcut text illustrations including 2 half-page, ornamental wood-and metal-cut initials, New Testament title within six-block border (4 pictorial, 2 side-blocks decorated with fountains and putti); lacking 10 of 568 leaves: lacks in OT title within woodblock border and preliminaries (AA1–6), BB2, AAa8 (blank); lacks in NT V7–8; first leaf (BB1) worn and wrinkled, some dampstaining at front, many headlines, foliation numbers and shoulder-notes shaved or cropped, some but fewer catchwords and signature marks shaved or cropped, occasional stains, repairs, and losses throughout. Eighteenth-century gilt-panelled calf, spine gilt in six compartments with morocco labels, plain endpapers, red edges; extremities rather worn, front joint cracked. 

A reprint of Matthew's Bible of 1537, with revised notes and Tyndale's prologues (including the long prologues to Jonah and Romans and that to the New Testament), edited by Edmund Becke. While it perpetuates the use of "bugges" in Psalms 91:5 from the Coverdale Bible of 1535, it is sometimes also singled out for its abhorrent epithet as the "Wife Beater's Bible," from a note following 1 Peter 3: "And if she be not obedient and healpfull unto hym, endevoureth to beate the feare of God into her heade, that therby she maye be compelled to learne her duitie and do it."

REFERENCES

STC 2077; ESTC S106943; Herbert 74

PROVENANCE

Thomas Bennett (eighteenth-century signature and notes on family genealogy on verso of NT title)