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Lot 64
Sale 6330 - Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts, Including Americana
May 8, 2025
10:00AM CT
Live / Chicago
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Estimate
$600 -
800
Price Realized
$960
Sold prices are inclusive of Buyer’s Premium
Lot Description
[LEAF BOOK]. [ELIOT, John (1604-1690)]. The First American Bible. A Leaf from a Copy of the Bible translated into the Indian Language by John Eliot and printed at Cambridge in New England in the Year 1663. Boston: D.B. Updike at The Merrymount Press for Charles E. Goodspeed and Company, 1929.
Small 8vo. With an original leaf from Eliot's Indian Bible bound in on a stub. Original gilt-paneled dark brown cloth, top edge gilt. Provenance: Horace Edward Thomas (bookplate pasted over former owner's bookplate).
LIMITED EDITION, one of 157 copies, CONTAINING AN ORIGINAL LEAF FROM THE 1663 ELIOT INDIAN BIBLE (modern foliation "N4" in pencil) in the Algonkian language.
"The Eliot Indian Bible is an icon of American printing, and though few today can read it with understanding, it remains one of the most sought-after productions of the early American press and one of the most evocative colonial books" (Joel Silver, "Catalog of the Exhibition," in: Disbound and Dispersed 11).