Three Bibles

Three outstanding folio Bibles were produced in the 1760s. The most famous was John Baskerville's (1763, H1146), ‘one of the finest books ever to have been printed in Britain’; McKitterick adds that ‘as such, it must take pride of place in the history of printing in Cambridge’ (II, p. 195). Yet, except in a negative way, it is an irrelevance as far as the history of the text is concerned. Baskerville had been appointed University Printer at Cambridge alongside, but not in co-operation with, the incumbent, Joseph Bentham. He was to undertake specific projects, including the folio Bible. His declared ambition was ‘to render this one Work as correct, elegant, and perfect as the Importance of it demands’; he would give his country ‘a more correct and beautiful Edition of the SACRED WRITINGS, than has hitherto appeared’. This is very much what Baskett's aim had been with his folio Bible, but this was no ‘Baskett-ful of errors’. Negatively, what is so striking is that ‘correct’, while promising freedom from typographical error, does not involve work on the text or the annotations. Baskerville's was a printer's, not a scholar's, Bible.

Though Baskerville could designate himself ‘Printer to the University’ on the title page, he was in competition with the Press's main commercial activity, as Bible printing now was — a major change since the beginning of the century. Cambridge's printing had been in a parlous state.