Sep 17, 2015 - Sale 2391

Sale 2391 - Lot 72

Price Realized: $ 4,420
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(BIBLE IN ENGLISH.) The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 334 pages. 12mo, contemporary plain calf, moderate wear; first gathering coming loose and a bit worn at fore-edge, minor corner wear throughout, minor foxing; early owners' inscriptions on front free endpaper. "St. Louis: Published by Seward & Hulbert, 1820"
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Additional Details

This is the earliest Bible bearing a west-of-the-Mississippi imprint by 17 years, and is unrecorded in OCLC, Hills, or Shaw & Shoemaker. It is quite a mystery on many levels. OCLC traces nothing else published under the Seward & Hulbert imprint, nor anything published by a Seward or Hulbert in St. Louis.
This edition is billed as "The Second American, from the Cambridge Stereotype Edition," a phrase used in several American editions from 1813 to 1820 in Albany and Utica, NY (see Hills 246, 316, 361, 389, and 409). The provenance of this copy suggests that it may never have reached St. Louis. The original owner was William Hayden Doughty (1810-1901), who inscribed it in 1822. He spent most of his life in Tyrone in western New York. Just below is an inscription by or about his brother David Ayers Doughty (1804-1886): "David A. Doughty started for Indiana the 20 of June 1838 in his 34 year of his age." The leaf also bears an inked stamp of William H. Doughty's grandson Ayres Amos Stevens (1882-1964), who lived in Corning, NY near Tyrone until his death.
In short, we don't really know where this Bible was printed. It may not have been St. Louis, but it is the earliest Bible bearing an imprint west of the Mississippi, and it is an undeniably rare artifact of printing for the frontier market.