THE HOLY BIBLE, CONTAINING THE OLD & NEW TESTAMENTS: TRANSLATED OUT OF THE ORIGINAL TONGUES, & WITH THE FORMER TRANSLATIONS DILIGENTLY COMPARED & REVISED. [VOLUMES I- VI]. [with:] THE NEW TESTAMENT OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST...[VOLUM

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Book Description

New York: American Bible Society, 1867-68, 1871.. Eight volumes. [1],[2]-216; [1],[217]-450; [1],451-660; [1],[661]-908; [1],909-1162; [1],1163-1419; [1],[1]-192; [1],[193]-430pp. Thick folio. Original three quarter calf and cloth boards. Calf worn, cloth scuffed and rubbed. Most hinges cracked, several front boards detached. Titlepages of New Testament volumes heavily worn and chipped, with loss to a few characters in Vol. I; front free endpaper lacking from New Testament, Vol. I. Light scattered foxing. Ex-lib., from the Forbes Library at Northampton, Massachusetts, with bookplates and card pockets in several volumes. Ink inscription on front free endpaper of Old Testament, Vol. I (see below). Else good. The complete Bible printed in raised letters for the blind, the second such American printing of the full work. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, several decades before the widespread adoption of Braille, printers and educators in France and Britain began developing a variety of tactile reading systems for the visually impaired, making independent reading among the blind possible for the first time in history. The results of an important competition at the Royal Society of Arts in Edinburgh in 1832 inspired the American activist, Samuel Gridley Howe, to research and develop his own embossed printing system, which emerged in 1835 as "Boston Line Type." Drawing upon the methods of James Gall, an entrant in the Edinburgh competition, Howe created an alphabet of angular raised roman letters that "was said to be far less bulky and therefore less expensive than contemporary European roman- letter systems" (PRINTING HISTORY, p.20). With the aid of a $1000 grant from the American Bible Society, Howe purchased the first printing press for the New England Institution for the Education of the Blind (today, the Perkins School for the Blind) and produced the country's first complete raised- letter Bible for the American Bible Society (ABS) in 1842. The present Bible is the second and final complete set printed for the ABS in Boston Line during the lifetime of S.G. Howe. The front free endpaper of the first volume of the Old Testament bears the following manuscript dedication: "Mrs Ellen C Brown Granby Mass Received this Book June 15th 1872. From American Bible Society. New York By the solicitations of Rev Rufus Emerson {6 Vol's - Old Testament}." An extremely rare and important set in the histories of printing, literacy, and the visually impaired in America. Elizabeth M. Harris, IN TOUCH: PRINTING AND WRITING FOR THE BLIND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (Smithsonian, 1981). Elizabeth M. Harris, "Inventing Printing for the Blind," PRINTING HISTORY, Vol. VIII, No. 2 (American Printing History Association, 1986), pp.15-25. "The First Books Embossed in the U.S. for Blind Readers, 1833-1880," compiled by the Callahan Museum of the American Printing House for the Blind. Bible Resource Center, "Translation through Multimedia," http://www.bibleresourcecenter.org/vsItemDispla y.dsp&objectID= B9901CA1-C794-4692- 92F22A423D5C8D8C&method=display.

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