Skip to main content

Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin

Trinity Menu Trinity Search

Director's Choice Uncut

Baskerville Bible

Baskerville Bible
Cambridge, 1763 The copy of the Bible known familiarly as the 'Baskerville Bible' was printed by the English printer John Baskerville in 1763. The productions of his press are revered by bibliophiles for the beauty of the type and for the pleasing, spacious layout of the pages. Baskerville's folio edition of the Bible was one of his largest projects and a fine example of the excellence of his printing. Such a beautiful printed book deserves a beautiful binding and that is just what the copy belonging to the Library of Trinity College Dublin was given.
Read more

According to evidence from the tools used, this copy of the Baskerville Bible was probably bound at William Hallhead's bindery in Dublin in around 1775. The binding was commissioned by the book's owner, Sir Richard Cox of Dunmanway in County Cork, whose arms are present on a small brass plaque on the upper cover. The volume was later acquired by the Irish bibliographer E.R. McClintock Dix, author of many works about early Irish printing, who presented it to the Library in 1907.

During the second half of the eighteenth century there were several bookbinders working in Dublin who produced exceptionally fine decorated bindings. Trinity's Bible is one of the most outstanding examples of their work. Bound in full red Morocco leather, the covers and spine are a mass of gold-tooled decorations, each one of them expertly and precisely stamped by hand onto the leather.

Shelfmark: Armoire

Lydia Ferguson

Dr Lydia Ferguson is Principal Librarian in the Department of Early Printed Books and Special Collections. She is particularly interested in the history of books printed before 1800 and in 18th-and 19th-century children’s books.

Explore the Library's Treasures