1876 Julia Smith Bible – Presentation Copy from her Husband
Key Features
The Only Bible Entirely Translated by a Woman
Format: Quarto (approx. 9.75” x 6.5”)
Font: Single Column Roman
Binding: Rebacked Brown Calf
Printer: American Publishing Company, Hartford, CT
SKU: R69
Key Features
The Only Bible Entirely Translated by a Woman
Format: Quarto (approx. 9.75” x 6.5”)
Font: Single Column Roman
Binding: Rebacked Brown Calf
Printer: American Publishing Company, Hartford, CT
SKU: R69
Key Features
The Only Bible Entirely Translated by a Woman
Format: Quarto (approx. 9.75” x 6.5”)
Font: Single Column Roman
Binding: Rebacked Brown Calf
Printer: American Publishing Company, Hartford, CT
SKU: R69
The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments: Translated literally from the original tongues.
Description
Text in two column Roman font. [3]-892 (Old Testament), [1]-276 pp. (New Testament). The books of the Old Testament are arranged in Jewish order, with Chronicles at the end. One of 950 copies.
Binding
Rebacked in matching black calf with original spine laid down. Embossed cloth, spine with “Holy Bible” and “Translated by Julia E. Smith” lettered in gilt to spine. All edges speckled red. Rubbed to edges with loss of small portions of relaid spine.
Condition
Crisp, clean, and bright.
Provenance
Note inked on front flyleaf reads “This Bible translated by my late wife Julia E. Smith is presented to Mrs. Susan E. Tullar by Amos A. Parker Aged Ninety Eight – Sir William V.H. June 20th 1889.”
Note
A remarkably well-preserved copy of the first and only Bible translated entirely by a woman. Julia E. Smith (1792–1886) of Glastonbury, Connecticut, used her knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew to render the entire Bible into English. A member of the Sandemanian sect, which sought to restore the Apostolic church, she dedicated eight years to her translation but did not publish it for another twenty-one years.
Sampson recounts Julia’s deep passion for the project: "I cannot express how greatly I enjoy the work of translating, and now the real meaning of different texts would thrill through my mind, till I could hardly contain myself." According to one account, she became so engrossed in her work that she often failed to hear the dinner bell and had to be summoned by her sisters.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in her radical and controversial work The Woman’s Bible, remarked that Smith’s translation would become a rarity in the next century, "much sought after by bibliomaniacs, to say nothing of scholars who will want it for its real value."
References
Herbert 2202; Hills 1918; Rumball-Petre 201; Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. The Woman’s Bible. Sampson, Emily. With Her Own Eyes: The Story of Julia Smith.