?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 5,000
JOHNSON'S GREEK NEW TESTAMENT (JOHNSON, SAMUEL.) Tes Kaines Diathekes Apanta . . . Novum Jesu Christi . . . Testamentum. [32], 470, [2] pages, including final with errata on recto and printer's device on verso. Folio, 336x219 mm, old calf, rebacked at an early date, rear cover detached, endpapers renewed in the mid-19th century with a portion excised to expose the ownership inscription of Samuel Hoole (see below) on the front pastedown; marginal dampstaining, toning, and foxing throughout, scattered words or letters highlighted in red, occasional underscoring and marginal pencil markings, title and last page heavily soiled; cloth folding case. Purchase price in Johnson's(?) hand in upper outer corner of front flyleaf. Frankfurt am Main: typis Wechelianis apud Claudium Marnium & heredes Joannes Aubrii, 1601
johnson's copy, presented by him to the reverend samuel hoole, with the latter's inscription: "S. Hoole 1781 ex dono Samuel Johnson L.L.D." Johnson befriended both the translator John Hoole and his son Samuel, and the two attended him during his final illness. He seems to have forgotten the gift to Samuel when drawing up his will in 1784, bequeathing "my Greek Bible by Wechelius" to the Reverend Mr. Strahan and one book each of their choice to John and Samuel Hoole (Boswell, Life, 1791, Volume 2, page 573). The book was subsequently owned by Joseph Turnbull, with his note dated 1848 on the front flyleaf concerning the provenance and another dated 1855 on the front pastedown about the binding ("Repaired by Partridge at Aylesbury"). It was sold as lot 339 in the sale of the library of Robert P. Esty at Parke-Bernet on 22 October 1963.
