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The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament and the New: Newly Translated out of the Original Tongues. Oxford: Printed by John Baskett, 1717. This magnificent 1717 Bible was produced in the printing house of John Baskett, identified on the title page as "printer to the King's most Excellent Majesty," and is one of fewer than two dozen copies of this rare and famous edition in the United States. The book's numerous and exquisite engravings and large, elegant type make it one of the finest examples of early-eighteenth-century English printing. Unfortunately, the book's typesetters were not so skilled, or as meticulous, as were its engravers and printers. The text includes so many errors that the volume has sometimes been referred to as the "Baskett-full of Errors." The edition is even more familiarly known as "the Vinegar Bible," from the most famous of its several typesetting errors. At the top of the page containing the twentieth chapter of the Book of Luke, with its parable of the vineyard, the typesetter inadvertently set the page-head to read "The parable of the vinegar." |
