The Morgan Gutenberg Bible Online

The Old Testament Copy

Most copies are bound in two volumes, the first composed of the Old Testament from Genesis through Psalms, the second comprising the rest of the Old Testament (Proverbs through Maccabees II) along with the New Testament. Here, however, the entire Old Testament is bound in one extra-large volume, and there is no evidence that it was ever accompanied by the New Testament. Furthermore, it contains twenty-two pages with unique "replacement" typesettings, more than in any other surviving copy of B42. The unique settings occur on leaves I,1r–2r; I,3r–8v; I,10r–10v; I,45r–46v; and I,130r. Why the printers went to so much trouble to reset so many pages is a question that may be answered on the basis of textual evidence and an analysis of watermarks, which indicate that these pages were reset at the very end of the press run. The printers may have been making a last-minute attempt to compensate for sheets found to be either missing or incomplete. If so, they could have been doing their part to make good use of leftover sheets, almost but not quite enough to assemble one or two complete Old Testaments that could be sold on their own. Such was the price of books at this time that they could expect a handsome profit in return for this extra effort.