[ILLUSTRATED BIBLE IN ENGLISH]. The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments, According to the Authorised Versions, with Illustrations by Gustave Dore. London, Paris, and Melbourne: Cassell and Company, Limited, 1897.
REPRINT. Leather-bound, hardcover, large thick quarto (30cm x 23cm x 7cm), pp. x, [2], 1004, [2], 186, 323. English text in double columns, with illustrations throughout by Gustave Dore. Bound in contemporary half calf, cloth sides, half-title, 194 full-page wood-engravings. Condition: GOOD. Binding tight and secure. Rubbing to extremities. Contents very well-preserved.
Notes: Later edition of Gustave Doré’s great illustrated Bible, splendidly illustrated by him with 194 full-page wood-engravings and bound in contemporary half calf. "In the 1870s, The Doré Bible was perhaps the most treasured (and expensive) book in the world" (Malan, 81). The publication proved a milestone in Doré's career. "Whereas he had to hawk round to publishers his drawings for the Rabelais [part of his intended series of volumes illustrating the masterpieces of literature], only to see them ruined by the cheap-jack who eventually took them on, the Bible was enthusiastically sponsored by one of the greatest French publishers of illustrated books of the day, Mame of Tours… Its original reception was truly remarkable… A second edition of the Bible was called for almost at once… Editions appeared in almost every European country… One of the first off the mark was an English edition from Cassell, Petter and Galpin, 1867. This caused an even greater sensation than the French edition, and the demand among collectors for any and everything by Doré was clamorous" (Muir, 224). With Apocrypha. This is a later edition of Doré's Holy Bible printed in a slightly more manageable quarto format rather than the earlier folio format first published in 1867. This edition also contains 194 large engraved plates rather than the 238 or 205 plates found in earlier editions. Malan, 239. Herbert 1977.
