THE HOLY BIBLE, TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN VULGATE: DILIGENTLY COMPARED WITH THE HEBREW, GREEK, AND OTHER EDITIONS, IN DIVERS LANGUAGES; AND FIRST PUBLISHED BY THE ENGLISH COLLEGE AT DOWAY, ANNO 1609. NEWLY REVISED, AND CORRECTED, ACCORDING TO THE CLEMENTI

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Philadelphia: Carey, Stewart, and Co., 1790.. Two volumes bound in one. viii,487,[1]; 280,*281-*284,281-490pp. Thick quarto. Modern calf in 18th-century English style, spine gilt, front and rear covers blind. In first volume, titlepage and second and fourth leaves recently repaired with no loss of text; pp.5-6 repaired, with loss of one word on each page; pp.35-36 repaired, with loss of a few words of text and most of footnotes on p.35, and loss of portion of five lines of text on p.36; pp.453- 454 and 455-456 repaired, with loss of text at upper margin of each page, foremargins repaired and extended with no loss of text. In second volume, pp.61-62 repaired, with loss of chapter heading on each page. Age- toning and stray stains throughout. Blank page between first and second volumes with 18th- and 19th-century Clancy family records in manuscript. A good copy, with the ownership inscription of original subscriber Lawrence Clancy on the titlepage. A remarkable gathering of firsts in a single volume: the first Catholic Bible printed in the United States, the first Catholic Bible printed in any language in the New World, the first Bible printed in quarto format in the U.S., the first Bible printed by Mathew Carey, and the first minority-religion Bible printed in America. Finally, this copy was first owned by an identifiable subscriber, listed as "Lawrence Clancey, Chambersburg" in the volume's list of subscribers' names, with his signature on the titlepage and a partial Clancy family genealogy recorded in manuscript included. Catholics constituted only a small minority of the population of the United States in 1790. Even so, Mathew Carey, an exile from Ireland, believed that America could support the publication of an edition of the English Catholic Bible. He secured approximately 475 subscribers, and it is thought the print run did not exceed 500 copies. In 1954 a census of extant copies found thirty-five copies in public and private collections. While the number of copies today may perhaps be forty- five, the volume's continuing rarity may be understood when one realizes that the Vatican Library did not possess a copy until 1979. With good reason, Margaret Hills describes this edition as "the rarest of the notable early American editions of the Bible." A significant edition both in the history of Bible printing and the history of publishing in the United States, with a marvelous provenance. EVANS 22349. PARSONS 87. HILLS 23. HERBERT 1343. RUMBALL-PETRIE 168. O'CALLAGHAN, pp.34-35.

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