Volume I
By the Late Reverend and Learned Divine Mr. Matthew Poole
London: Printed by John Richardson for Thomas Parkhurst, Dorman Newman, Jonathan Robinson, Brabazon Ailmer, Thomas Cockeril and Benjamin Alsop, 1683
An impressive and increasingly scarce 17th-century folio first edition of Volume I of Matthew Poole's celebrated Annotations upon the Holy Bible, one of the enduring works of English Protestant biblical exposition.
The full title reads:
Annotations upon the Holy Bible. Wherein the Sacred Text is Inserted, and various Readings Annex'd, together with the Parallel Scriptures; the more difficult Terms in each Verse are Explained, seeming Contradictions Reconciled, Questions and Doubts Resolved, and the whole Text opened.
This is Volume I only, extending from Genesis through Isaiah. It is not a complete set.
The edition is bibliographically recorded as Wing P2820 and was published in London in 1683. The complete first edition appeared in two volumes, with the continuation following in 1685.
Matthew Poole (1624–1679) was an important English Nonconformist biblical scholar and theologian. Born in York, he was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, receiving his BA in 1649 and MA in 1652.
Poole ministered at St Michael le Querne in London but, following the Act of Uniformity of 1662, was among the ministers ejected from their livings for Nonconformity. He subsequently devoted much of his life to biblical scholarship.
His monumental Latin Synopsis Criticorum Biblicorum brought together an enormous body of biblical scholarship. His more accessible English Annotations upon the Holy Bible became perhaps his best-known work. Poole died in Amsterdam in 1679, several years before the publication of this edition.
Poole's Annotations sought to explain difficult passages, compare parallel Scriptures, address apparent contradictions and give readers the sense of the biblical text. It remains in print and use among Reformed and evangelical readers more than three centuries later.
First edition, Volume I – 1683
London: John Richardson for Thomas Parkhurst, Dorman Newman, Jonathan Robinson, Brabazon Ailmer, Thomas Cockeril and Benjamin Alsop.
The bibliographical record describes the volume as approximately 1,239 pages and notes that copies were originally issued with an engraved portrait of Matthew Poole.
PLEASE NOTE: No portrait/frontispiece is present in this copy as photographed.
Large folio in an old full leather binding with:
The binding has considerable age and character.
Please read carefully and study all photographs.
This is a book approximately 343 years old and consequently shows substantial age-related wear.
The full leather binding is worn, rubbed, scuffed and marked, with areas of surface loss. There is significant loss and deterioration of the leather at several corners and edges, particularly to the lower corners. The spine ends and joints show wear and losses, and there are splits/weaknesses around the joints.
Despite its external wear, the volume remains an imposing early binding with the raised bands, blind tooling and spine labels surviving.
Internally there is expected age-toning, spotting, staining and occasional marking. Some leaves show edge wear, small tears, creasing and other age-related defects. The photographs give a representative indication of condition.
The photographed opening title leaf has some creasing and staining. The text is printed in double columns with extensive annotations surrounding the inserted biblical text.
The engraved portrait of Matthew Poole recorded in bibliographical descriptions of this edition is NOT present.
I have not collated every individual leaf and therefore the volume is sold as not collated and completeness cannot be guaranteed. The photographed volume runs from Genesis through Isaiah and concludes with the printed FINIS at the end of Isaiah.
A remarkable survivor from the Restoration period and a highly appealing item for a collector of Puritan and Nonconformist theology, early English Bible commentary, Reformed literature or seventeenth-century books.
Date: 1683
Author: Matthew Poole (1624–1679)
Title: Annotations upon the Holy Bible
Volume: I only
Coverage: Genesis–Isaiah
Format: Large folio
Binding: Full leather
Size: approx. 370 × 250 × 75 mm
Weight: approx. 4.19 kg
Published more than three centuries ago, this is a genuinely imposing early edition of one of the classic works of English Protestant biblical exposition.