ROYAL FOLIO 

THE MACKLIN BIBLE 

The Largest and Most Luxurious Printing
of the Authorized (King James) Version

With the Bookplate of Evelyn Waugh

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE

London, 1800


Bible in English. The Old Testament, Embellished with Engravings, from Pictures and Designs by the Most Eminent English Artists. [With:] The New Testament. London: Printed for Thomas Macklin by Thomas Bensley, 1800.

With the personal bookplate of Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966), British writer, journalist and reviewer, considered one of the leading English prose writers of the 20th century.

SEVEN VOLUMES, Folio (464 x 400mm). With more than 100 elaborate allegorical headpieces and tailpieces and some 60 SPLENDED LARGE-FOLIO SIZE COPPER PLATES after Fuseli, Reynolds, West, and others, most plates printed before letters. 


Full morocco, covers with elaborate gilt borders, spine with double raised bands, gilt in nine compartments, all edges gilt, gilt dentelles. 


The most prodigious form of scripture in English ever published, the Macklin Bible features large and bold type, fine Whatman paper, and a series of engravings by some of the most celebrated artists of the time.


Macklin announced his plan to produce a lavishly illustrated, luxuriously produced folio Bible in 1789, and he spent the next 11 years making his dream a reality, though it proved a costly endeavor. He paid Reynolds £500 for his Holy Family, and William Sharp £700 for its engraving. The average cost for 45 of the Bible's other engravings was £220, and the total cost of the publication was an estimated £30,000 (approximately £4,500,000 [$6+ million USD] in today's money). His efforts paid off: "The subscription list for 703 copies at £46 1s. apiece was headed by the King, the Queen, and the Prince of Wales" (DNB).


As DNB observes, "The Macklin Bible endures as the most ambitious edition produced in Britain, often pirated but never rivalled."


This is a complete seven volume set "embellished with engravings from pictures and designs by the most eminent English artists." Each volume of this astounding edition measures an incredible 19+ inches in height.  Complete in every aspect - seven volumes (the Old Testament in five, the New Testament in two). 

A lavish edition and one that has long been a favorite among Bible collectors. The volumes are very large and heavy. The text is printed in columns almost 14 inches long, embellished with large engraved head- and tailpieces by Landseer, Benjamin West, F. Bartolozzi, J. Heath, W. Skelton, W. Bromley and other with designs by West, Opie, Stothard, W. Hamilton, De Loutherbourgh, and others. The plates are marvelous, mostly on New Testament subjects, and the 'headpieces' to the chapters are actually so large as to amount to half- and two-thirds-page engravings. In the tradition of the English 18th century reforms that introduces well-designed and cut typefaces, the typographer has used a good Roman font in a large point size, with only 29 lines to a full column and with two columns per page.

An innovation here is that words normally found in italic type are presented in roman with a dot below the first letter. Additionally, scattered through are single line explanatory "footnotes."

Some scuffs to boards, with visible wear to the top and base of all spines. All bindings are tight and holding. Complete weight of these seven volumes exceeds 100 lbs. Please feel free to request additional images of the bindings. 

One of the rarest and most majestic Bibles ever printed. 


REFERENCE

Darlow & Moule 982; Herbert 1442, 1651


[Please feel free to contact us regarding other association Bibles with interesting provenance. We currently have Bibles and historical documents associated with a wide range of historical figures such as John Calvin, John Wesley, Adam Clarke, William Wilberforce, Abraham Lincoln, Prime Minister William Pitt and many others.]