



DOVES PRESS The English Bible, Containing the Old Testament & the New Translated, 5 vol., ONE OF 500 COPIES ON PAPER, Hammersmith, Doves Press, 1903-1905
Sold for £12,112.50 inc. premium
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DOVES PRESS
Footnotes
Fine association copy, belonging to one of the Doves Press compositors who worked on the Bible. The English Bible was the only folio printed by Cobden Sanderson and Emery Walker at the Doves Press, taking a little over two years to complete, in an edition of approximately 500 copies. Described by Colin Franklin as the Press's "magnum opus" (The Private Presses), it was printed using the font designed by Walker, the matrices, punches and type of which were later infamously thrown into the Thames from Hammersmith Bridge by Cobden-Sanderson, following the bitter dispute between the two printers.
Provenance: J. Guttridge, his 2 original Doves Press receipts for the Bible included in the lot. Guttridge was one of two additional compositors taken on by the Press in 1902 to work specifically on the Bible under the guidance of John Henry Mason, the chief compositor. Prior to starting on the Bible Guttridge and three new pressmen were "as an introduction to work at the Press... first employed on the [Doves] Tennyson" (Tidcombe, Doves Press, 2002. Guttridge is mentioned on the colophon as one of the compositors; by family descent to present vendor.