Bible. New Testament. Liturgical Epistles and Gospels. English

small 4to (180 x 132mm.), 3 parts only (of 4), comprising parts Summer i, Summer ii and Holy Days, title to Summer ii within woodcut border (not in McKerrow & Ferguson), mostly Black Letter, occasional early manuscript marginalia (some slightly cropped by binder), eighteenth-century half calf over marbled boards, without Winter section, Summer i lacking title and preliminary leaves, small hole in final text leaf of Summer i with loss of a few letters, title-page of Summer ii bound at front and lacking final leaf of text (supplied in manuscript by Farmer), some browning and waterstains, spine slightly worn, corners rubbed

Joseph Ames (1689-1759), the bibliographer (his library sold in 1760), according to nineteenth-century notes in ink on flyleaves by R. Farmer, i.e. Richard Farmer (1735-1797), scholar and head of Emmanuel College Cambridge (his library sold by King in 1798); notes in pencil by Mendham opposite first leaf of text

Joseph Ames had created a "museum" of title-pages (his collection is now in the British Library), which would accord with the lack of two title-pages from this copy.

Darlow & Moule 38 (all 4 parts); STC 2968.7 (but with variant colophon and all side notes in textura), 2969.3 and 2970.3

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate.
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A rare volume of sermons by Richard Taverner (1505-1575), the evangelical reformer, translator of Erasmus and propagandist for Thomas Cromwell, containing the text of the liturgical epistles and gospels in English, some of which were reused in Cranmer's book of official homilies (lot 52). Taverner also directed Richard Bankes's press in the late 1530s.

"According to J. Holmes... the original draft of this work is contained in a MS. (Harl. MSS. 6561) now in the British Museum. It is a translation, believed to have been made by Henry Parker Lord Morley, for the use of his kinswoman Anne Boleyn, and to have been presented by him to her, when Marchioness of Pembroke, in 1532" (Darlow & Moule).