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Fac-simile of the title page of the Aitken Bibte, 1782.

Exact size.

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hundred Bibles in quarto could hardly have been printed, bound, and sold in Boston, then a small town, undiscovered. Nor would they all have disappeared. The most complete catalogues of English Bibles enumerate no one with the imprint which was said to have been copied. Till a copy of the pretended American edition is produced no credit can be given to the second-hand story."

As no copy of this supposed Bible has ever been identified, Mr. O'Callaghan omits it from his "List of Bibles printed in America." Any testimony in the handwriting of Mr. Aitken that his Bible published in 1782 was the first Bible printed in America in the English language would be of great value, for he could not make this claim, if in his day some other edition had already claimed it. Fortunately, we have this testimony in Mr. Aitken's own words, written with his own hand. In the British Museum there is to be seen a copy of the Aitken Bible in two volumes. The following note is on the back of the title-page of the first volume, in the

writing of Mr. Aitken: "This first copy of the first edition of the Bible ever printed in America in the English language, is presented to Ebenezar Hazard, Esq., by the Editor." Inserted at the beginning of the second volume is a letter as follows:

PHILADELPHIA, July 6, 1844.

DEAR SIR, -I send you herewith the copy of the Bible published in this city in 1782 by Robert Aitken, which you may be assured I part with, with great regret, as well because it was presented by the publisher to my father, as because it is, according to the certificate on the fly-leaf in Mr. Aitken's own handwriting, “the first copy of the first edition ever printed in America in the English language," the first sheets having been carefully laid aside for my father - who was very intimate with the publisher - until the whole work was completed.

Yours truly,

SAM HAZARD.

CHAS. MARSHALL, Esq.

This Bible was formerly in the collection of Mr. Lea Wilson, and was bought by the British Museum in 1849. The books are in the original binding of olive-green leather. The two volumes are divided at the end of Ecclesiastes, a division peculiar to this set, as in other copies the sec

ond volume begins with the Gospel of St. Matthew. In some cases the volumes were

bound in one.

Robert Aitken was a native of Dalkeith, Scotland, and emigrated to America in 1769, and settled at Philadelphia as a bookseller. In 1771 he added bookbinding to his business, having learned that art in Edinburgh. Later, in 1774, he became a publisher. The war of the colonies with Great Britain interrupted commerce, and books were difficult to procure, and especially Bibles. The urgency in this direction was so great that a memorial was presented to Congress suggesting and urging the printing of Bibles in America. The committee to whom the memorial was referred reported in the autumn of 1777 that the difficulty of procuring type and paper was so great that they recommended Congress to advance the money for publishing an edition of the Bible, or, if this was not expedient, to order the importation of a number sufficient to meet the demand. Congress resolved upon the latter course, and directed the

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