This is an edited reposting from our sister site Bookride first posted in June 2007. Sotheby's NY is selling a copy in November 2013 and expecting $30 million. It is about to go on a tour of America. Sadly our archive does not have a copy although it is worth noting that the same printing press (shipped over by the pilgrims) also produced some ephemera...
"...we have therefore done our endeavor to make a plain and familiar translation of the psalms and words of David into English metre, and have not so much as presumed to paraphrase to give the sense of his meaning in other words; we have therefore attended herein as our chief guide the original, shunning all additions, except such as even the best translators of them in prose supply, avoiding all material detractions from words or sense." From the introduction to the Bay Psalm Book, 1640.
THE WHOLE BOOKE OF PSALMES. Faithfully translated into English Metre. (The Bay Psalm Book.) [Cambridge, Mass.] : Imprinted by S. Daye, 1640. Compiled and translated by John Cotton; Richard Mather; John Eliot; Thomas Weld; Stephen Day; Matthew Day; Adrian Van Sinderen.
The Bay Psalm Book was the common hymnal of the Massachusetts Bay colony. An American icon, a piece of heroic history - it was both the first book printed in the Colonies and it was also the first book entirely written in the Colonies. Printed 20 years after the first arrivals in Plymouth in 1620 on the first printing press in New England which was purchased and imported from London specifically to print this book. In 1639 the press printed first the Freeman’s Oath and then an almanac, no copies of which are extant. The mind boggles at the value that could be attached to these.
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