[Geneva Bible] Robert Barker – The Bible [Herbert 330] - 1614

Offered here is a remarkable 1614 Geneva Bible, printed in London by Robert Barker, Printer to the King, and identified bibliographically as Herbert 330 and ESTC S2232. Dating from the reign of King James I, it belongs to the final generations of the influential Geneva Bible tradition, only a few years after the first edition of the King James Bible in 1611.

The Geneva Bible was one of the most important English Protestant Bibles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. First published in Geneva in 1560 by English Protestant exiles, it became particularly famous for its extensive marginal annotations, verse divisions and explanatory notes reflecting Reformed theology.

This 1614 edition is printed in two columns in characteristic black-letter type and contains the Old Testament, Apocrypha and New Testament, together with the extensive Geneva marginal annotations. The volume is richly decorated with woodcut initials, headpieces and tailpieces.

A complete Herbert 330 Bible text block comprises 624 leaves, equivalent to approximately 1,248 printed sides. Copies containing the associated John Speed genealogical material may additionally contain 34 pages of illustrated genealogical tables followed by a double-page map of Canaan. The genealogies trace biblical ancestry from Adam onwards and are among the most distinctive illustrated components associated with early English Geneva Bibles.

The volume also contains two important title pages: the engraved general title page dated 1614 and the separate New Testament title page dated 1613, both incorporating elaborate decorative woodcut borders. These borders contain numerous small pictorial compartments, making the title pages important examples of early seventeenth-century English biblical printing.

Robert Barker occupies a particularly important position in English printing history. As King's Printer, he was responsible for printing the first edition of the King James Bible in 1611 as well as numerous subsequent English Bibles. This Geneva Bible therefore represents an especially interesting moment when the older Geneva tradition and the newly published King James Version existed alongside one another.

The Geneva Bible remained extremely influential despite the appearance of the King James Version. Its language, marginal commentary and Protestant theological tradition had a lasting influence on English religious culture, literature and political thought. It was widely used by English Puritans and was among the Bibles associated with the early settlers of New England.

The present copy has been sympathetically rebound in later full leather with marbled endpapers. The binding is a later conservation/rebinding and is not represented as the original seventeenth-century binding. The original early seventeenth-century text block remains preserved.

The copy offered here is imperfect and has several significant losses. It lacks the original Concordance, Genealogies and Maps. In addition, leaves numbered 138–143, corresponding to 1 Kings, chapters 11–21, are missing. These omissions should be taken into consideration when assessing the completeness of the present copy.

Despite these losses, the volume remains an authentic early seventeenth-century Geneva Bible printed by Robert Barker and represents an important survival from a pivotal period in English biblical and printing history.

Bibliographical reference:
Herbert 330; ESTC S2232.

Approximate dimensions:
Height: 22.8 cm
Width: 18 cm
Thickness: 7.5 cm
Weight: approximately 1.51 kg

The photographs show the actual copy offered and form an integral part of the condition description.