THE HOLY BIBLE CONTAINING THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS, TRANSLATED OUT OF THE ORIGINAL TONGUES, WITH THE APOCRYPHA, CONCORDANCE AND PSALMS. TO WHICH ARE APPENDED A COMPREHENSIVE BIBLE DICTIONARY, IN WHICH EVERY IMPORTANT SCRIPTURAL WORD IS FULLY EXPLAINED.; A COMPLETE HISTORY OF EACH BOOK OF THE BIBLE, BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED. CITIES OF THE BIBLE, WITH DESCRIPTIVE SCENES AND EVENTS IN PALESTINE. JEWISH AND EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES; BIBLICAL SCENERY; MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE ANCIENTS; NATURAL HISTORY; BIBLE AIDS FOR SOCIAL PRAYER; A HISTORY OF THE JEWISH WORSHIP, &c. OVER ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND MARGINAL REFERENCES. A CONCISE HISTORY OF ALL RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS, AND MANY OTHER IMPORTANT AND USEFUL AIDS TO THE STUDY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. ALL WRITTEN TO INCREASE THE INTEREST IN AND SIMPLY THE STUDY OF THE WORD OF GOD. "The Whole Embellished with Nine Hundred Illustrations, on Steel, Wood, and in Colors" Scholars who figured in the bringing-down-and-through of this magnificent production include: Rev. Alfred Nevin;

Philadelphia, PA: A. J. Holman & Co, 1874. q. Massive Folio.,. which is essentiallly an entire biblical education in a single binding. Meant to be lifetime book, the center of the personal, spiritual and family life. 12 1/4 in. x 10 1/4 in.Brown full calf, modeled and beveled, divided into seven elaborate, floriated segments, tooled in blind, surrounding a large (6 1/2 in. x 3 1/2 in.) segment, bearing
the title (Holy Bible) in a Blackletter-style font. Atop is a reclining angel holding a sheaf of wheat, head haloed by golden rays. Five raised bands to spine, with elaborate gilded vignettes to compartments one, three, four and six, book title in compartment two, and "Bible Dictionary and Cities of the Bible" in compartment five. Past conservation evident, most likely rebacking. Rear board repeats the front, though here completely in blind. All edges marbled. Pages lightly age-tanned.[viii] pp. 9-16; 1-32; 1-104; 1-8; 1-47; Map; + pp.30 (unpaginated); 1-24; 1-32; 9-576;
1-104;+ 6. NEW TESTAMENT: 1-48; 579-768; 1-41; 1-21 (Psalms of David in Metre).

Previous owner's inked dedication ("Happy New Year / To Mother Jan. 1, 1877") to front free endpaper. An indisputably stunning, tissue-guarded, chromolithographed, eight-color frontis (green, purple, red, black, blue, beige, all against a field of gold), featuring the Ten Commandments, and the prayer from Deuteronomy 6 (5-9) and, in variation, Matthew 22 (37-39).
(a second, equally as splendiferous engraving featuring The Lord's Prayer, at the beginning of
The New Testament)

Entries on the family pages in between Old and New Testaments reveal that this bible belonged to (and moved through) the George Franklin Rand family of Warner, in Mereimack County, New Hampshire, located about eighteen miles NW of the Capitol at Concord. Family also connected to
either by birth or marriage to the original owners (The dedications begin with the marriage of George Rand and Nancy M. Courser, both of Warner) include the Ring Family -- a original settling family in the town and the Cheney Family.

The Contents section lists pagination, book-by-book, for each of the significant sections of
Scripture.

MANY many illustrations, including numerous full-page black and white etchings of biblical scenes, and a two-part panorama of Jerusalem and of the Holy Land. Separate title page for the New Testament. "The Bible is a great preacher. It teaches more infallibly and qujite as persuasively as human lips. We need not undervalue the ordinance of human preaching, yet in many a case the Bible has reached a heart which human words never would have reached, and there are many souls which have been left alone to the written Word of God for the food of their highest and dearest life. The emigrant, bending over his solitary Bible; the soldier or sailor on his nightly watch; many whom business or necessity has taken away from the abodes of men, where there is no church, no ordinance, and the preacher's voice is never heard; the sick man in the solitude of his chamber, to whom the privileges of the sanctuary are denied -- they all draw from their Bible their soul's daily food, and all their spiritual strength...
(from Introduction).