Leaf from the Baskerville Cambridge Bible, 1763

Item — Box: 3, Folder: 28

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

From the Collection:

Sold as Otto F. Ege's Original Leaves from Famous Bibles: Nine Centuries, 1121-1935 A.D. Cleveland: Otto Ege, circa 1950, this collection consists of 37 original Bible leaves in mattes with descriptive labels. Three items are manuscript pages, while an additional 34 are printed. The leaves range in age from circa 1200 to 1935. During the years 1938-1950, Ege published portfolios under this title with 37, 50 and 60 leaves.

For preservation reasons, the leaves have been separated from their mattes, and enclosed in mylar. However, each matte and descriptive label has been retained with its original leaf where possible.

The descriptions consist mostly of transcriptions of the labels written by Ege.

Dates

Creation: 1763

Creator

From the Collection: Ege, Otto F. (Compiler, Person)
From the Collection: Duschnes, Philip C. (Compiler, Person)

Biographical / Historical

Printed by John Baskerville, Printer to the University

The magnum opus of Baskerville, England’s greatest type-founder and printer. For the printing of this imperial folio Bible, he moved his press from Birmingham to Cambridge. As he was able to secure only 264 subscribers (at four guineas each) for the edition of 1250 copies, he has to barrow £2000 to complete the work. It is a paradox that Baskerville should have issued, at great financial loss, several editions of the Bible when he “unblushingly avowed not only his disbelief of, but his contempt for revealed religion, and that in terms too gross for repetition.” His Cambridge Bible is one of the four monumental printed editions-the other three being the Gutenberg 42 Line Bible, the Doves Press Bible, and the Rogers Oxford Lectern Bible.