HARPER'S
The front cover depicts the Sermon on the Mount and the back coer has Rebecca at the Well.
The token page is inscribed from Grandmother Flora Richards Arnold to Harris Wentworth Arnold, March 8, 1955.
This Bible does not have the 1846 date on the title page and the signature numbering is different than the 1846. These signatures are 1 through 161 for 8-page signatures beginning on page 25 with signature 4.
The use of the word illuminated refers not to decoration in gold, but both to the high number of illustrations and to the fact the half-titles, title leaves, and the presentation, birth, death, and marriage leaves are printed using colored inks. The pages are 13" x 9". This Bible was "entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1843, by Harper & Brothers. In the Clerk's office of the Southern District of New York. Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 82 Cliff Street. 1846". A bibliography by the librarian [Margaret Thorndike Hills] of the American Bible Society, New York, in 1962, identified the location of nine copies of the Bible. In 1999, not including the above, I could identify the location of nine more copies.
Because of new technology, at the time, the cost for this Bible was enormous, so it was first sold in parts. One section of the Bible [28 pages] was printed and it was sold on the street by what we now call newsboys. From the money earned on the first section, the publishers were able to print the second section and sell. They issued one part each month. Each section sold for $0.25. The print run was 50,000 each month. Harper & Brothers sold a total of fifty-four sections of 28 pages which include the colored front and back cover. At the end of the printing of 54 parts, in 1846, they produced bound copies with elaborate leather binding with gold gilding on the front, back and spine. Or you could have the Bible bound by a bindery of your choice.
Harper & Brothers sold a total of fifty-four sections of 28 pages which include the colored front and back cover. At the end of the printing of 54 parts, in 1846, they produced bound copies with elaborate leather binding with gold gilding on the front, back and spine. Or you could have the Bible bound by a bindery of your choice.
This prospectus says: Jonathan Byrd's Rare Books and Bibles refers to this Bible as: "An absolute masterpiece of printing, and one of the ten most important ever printed in America". W. J. Linton, noted wood-engraver and author knew "no other book like this, so good, so perfect in all it undertakes. The illustrations are like picturings of history as are many of the old European Biblical paintings and illustrations".
The engraver, Joseph A. Adams was the first in America to use the electrotype process from woodcut engravings. He was hired by Harper & Brothers on a half-contract basis at $6,000 and he had an arrangement that he would see the whole project through to the end. Artists were engaged for more than six years in the preparation of the designs and engravings at a cost of $25,000. 1,400 of the 1,600 engravings were designed by J. G. Chapman and the prim line-work of the drawings was carefully reproduced by Harper and Brothers. Chapman was paid a little over $2,000 for his drawings.
There are 187 5"x7" illustrations in this Bible. It is mentioned that a total of 1,400 of the 1,600 illustrations (excluding the letters) were done by Chapman. All but forty-three are decorated with an elaborate border. These illustrations were done by unnamed artists from England and France and Chapman added borders (43 exceptions without a border). It's interesting to note that the Chapman borders around the other 145 illustrations are only nine different designs.
The 1,400 illustrations referred to above were done by Chapman. These are set into the text throughout the Bible to depict the verse. 215 of these were placed at the beginning of the chapter in lieu of using a letter. There are 1,361 chapters in the Bible. At the beginning of each chapter Harper inserted a floriated letter to begin the Chapter or an image by Chapman or in some cases (18) no image or letter. There are 1,078 floriated initials that begin 1,078 verses. Each of these letters are different engravings. There are 353 different A's, 210 different T's and 107 different N's. There are no Q's or X's and only 1 V and Z and 3 R's and Y's. Signature numbering. As mentioned before, the parts were in 4-page signatures. The bound Bibles from 1846 on have the following signature markings:
ILLUMINATED BIBLE 1843
John Gadsby Chapman
Joseph Alexander Adams
owned by Harris Wentworth Arnold
Complete in about 50 numbers at 25 cents. Harper's Illuminated and New Pictorial Bible. Embellished with Sixteen Hundred Historical Engravings, Exclusive of an initial letter to each chapter, By J.A.[Joseph Alexander] Adams [1803-1880], More than fourteen hundred of which are from original designs, by J.G.[John Gadsby] Chapman [1808-1889]. It will be printed from the standard copy of the American Bible Society, and contain Marginal References, the Apocrypha, a Concordance Table, List of Proper Names, General Index, Table of Weights, Measures, etc. The large Frontpiece, Titles to the Old and New Testaments, Family Record, Presentation plate, Historical Illustrations, and Initial Letters to the chapters, Ornamental Borders, etc., will be from original designs, made expressly to this edition by J. G. Chapman, Esq., of New York. In addition to which, there will be numerous large engravings, from designs by distinguished modern artists in France and England; to which a full index will be be given in the last number [not done]. The Great superiority of early proof impressions, from the Engravings, will ensure in those who take the work in Numbers the possession of it in The Highest State of Perfection
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