Bible, English. The Byble, that is to say all the Holy Scripture: In whych are contayned the Olde and New Testamente, edited by Edmund Becke, 5 parts in 1, each with a separate woodcut title, the first together with the following 4 leaves printed in red and black, printed in black letter, double column, woodcut illustrations and initials, first and last few leaves with 19th century paper repairs to edges, those repairs on the first 3ff. coming adrift and loose, slight fraying from old damp to fore-edge of first c.40ff. with occasional loss to side-notes, some leaves elsewhere throughout trimmed at fore-edge with loss to side-notes and woodcut border of Apocrypha, Iii6 torn into text block but legibility unaffected, some marginal worming, some staining, mostly marginal and not heavy, lacking blank leaf AAa8 at end of part 3, some early ink annotations throughout, 19th century vellum, gilt, slight stain to upper cover, gilt-lettered black morocco spine label slightly chipped, [Herbert 74], folio (295 x 185mm.), Imprynted...by John Daye...and William Seres, 1549.

⁂ A textually complete copy of this rare Bible, often known as the 'Bug Bible' "though the rendering bugges in Ps. xci. 5 is first found in the Coverdale Bible of 1535, and occurs in many others." (Herbert). It is also known as the "Wife-Beater's Bible" because of the reading in 1 Peter iii "And yf she be not obedient and healpfull unto hym endevoureth to beate the feare of God into her heade, that therby she maye be compelled to learne her dutie and do it." It is a reprint of Matthew's Bible of 1537, with Becke's notes and revisions. Tyndale's prologue to Jonah is reprinted here for the first time since its appearance in late 1531. The type-face is a "rather peculiar black-letter" (Herbert). As well as the fine woodcut titles, the text illustrations include "two large half-page engravings before Psalms and Isaiah; many cuts in pts. 1 to 4; cuts of each Evangelist; and 20 small figures in Revelation, with rhyming couplets, printed either below or at the sides of each cut." (Herbert).

Whilst copies do appear at auction reasonably regularly, very few are complete, the last one being the Wardington copy in 2006.

Provenance: Thomas Wilson (early ink inscription to title); Granville Hastings Wheler (small green oval morocco book label dated 1725).