The first complete printed Bible in English.

This is the first complete printed translation of the Bible into Modern English, undertaken by the Anglican preacher and reformer Miles Coverdale (1488–1568). Dedicated to Henry VIII and granted royal assent in 1537, the ‘Coverdale Bible’, as it is widely known, was therefore also the first translation of its kind approved for use in England. 

While the publication of a vernacular Bible marked a significant moment for the Protestant cause in England, and vindication for earlier luminaries such as John Wycliffe (d. 1384) and William Tyndale (martyred 1536) who had advocated for Scripture in the common tongue, it was also a highly political act. The title-page of the Coverdale Bible, engraved by Hans Holbein the Younger, asserts both the authority of the written word and the supremacy of Henry’s Ecclesia Anglicana. Parallel scenes and scripture from the Old and New Testaments converge in a portrait of the king handing over a copy of the Bible to the English clergy—a powerful image reflecting the changing circumstances surrounding the Coverdale Bible’s creation. While Henry VIII himself did not commission the work, neither did he intervene to prevent its publication: following the break with Rome in 1534, a convocation of bishops at Canterbury had petitioned the king for a complete English version of the Bible, and when Coverdale's version appeared, it was permitted to circulate for use in the Church. This first edition of 1535 was printed at Antwerp; subsequent verions in large and small formats were printed at London, including the edition of 1537 which received royal approval.

For all its textual significance, the Coverdale Bible was not in fact widely used. In 1539 it was superseded by the publication of the ‘Great Bible’, the first authorised edition of the Bible, which was also prepared by Coverdale. The ‘Great Bible’ would serve as the main Bible used by the Church of England until the printing of the so-called ‘Bishops’ Bible’ in 1568.


Bibliographic description
[1], xc, cxx, lij, cij, lxxxi (i.e. lxxxiii), cxiij leaves : ill.