English Bible printing, 1600s

William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1633–1645:

“by the numerous coming over of [Geneva] Bibles . . . from Amsterdam, there was a great and a just fear conceived that by little and little printing would quite be carried out of the kingdom. For the books which came thence were better print, better bound, better paper, and for all the charges of bringing, sold better cheap. And would any man buy a worse Bible dearer, that might have a better more cheap? And to preserve printing here at home . . . was the cause of stricter looking to those Bibles.”[3]

Norton’s notes prior to this remark on Laud’s comment that “the King’s Printer forbore to print Geneva Bibles for ‘private lucre, not by virtue of any public restraint’” because Robert Barker (the King’s Printer) was heavily invested (that is, financially) in the new translation. Norton also mentions puritan bookseller Michael Sparke’s general agreement with Laud.

[3] “Works, IV: 263. An opposite, somewhat obscure account of imported Bibles is given by Thomas Fuller. He describes Bibles imported from Amsterdam and Edinburgh about 1640 ‘as being of bad paper, worse print, little margin’, and having ‘many most abominable errata’. These, he says, were complained about ‘as giving great advantage to the papists’ (Church History of Britain, 1655) 3 vols. (London, 1868), book XI, section 3, 29; III: 462-3). Fuller lived through this time, so the reader may choose between his account and that of two adversaries immediately concerned with the issue. Judgement of the Bibles of this time, in terms of their printing qualities, would be a complex matter, and Laud, Sparke and Fuller’s arguments are all shaped by other interests.”

The quotes above are from The History of the English Bible as Literature, David Norton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 91). Norton suggests that the early printing history of the King James Bible might be more complicated than arguing partisan “King James Onlyists” and “anti-King James Onlyists” often declare.