The Holy Bible, Containing All the Books of the Old and New Testaments.
In two volumes. Designed and illustrated by Barry Moser with 232 relief engravings printed from the artist’s blocks. Published by The Pennyroyal Caxton Press, Hatfield Massachusetts and New York City, 1999. Typesetting and printing of text and relief engravings on Zerkall and Twinrocker handmade paper was executed by Bradley Hutchinson at his letterpress printing office in Austin, Texas.
From the prospectus: “One could walk the history of printing on the spines of great Bibles. From Gutenberg to Baskerville to the peerless Doves Press Bible of 1903 and Bruce Rogers’ splendid Oxford Lectern Bible of 1935, Bibles have been the crowning masterpieces of the world’s great typographers, printers, and illustrators.
The Pennyroyal Caxton Bible follows Frederick Scrivner’s 1873 critical edition of the Cambridge Paragraph Bible of the Authorized Version, the text used by Cobden Sanderson for his Doves Press Bible which maintained traditional chapter breaks and indicated paragraphs with the pilcrow. In this and its understated typographic simplicity The Pennyroyal Caxton Bible closely follows and owes much to the Doves model.
The Pennyroyal Caxton Bible is the only twentieth-century Bible with illustrations for every book of both the Old and New Testaments. The illustrations are executed in a new engraving medium called Resingrave, a cast white polymer resin invented by Richard Woodman. Moser has become a champion of this new medium for its feel, its stamina on press, and its results which are virtually indistinguishable from wood engraving.
The type is Matthew Carter’s Galliard, refitted by Carter especially for this project. Three display words have been designed by the peerless letter cutter John Benson: the word god for the opening spread of Genesis; the word christ on the opening spread of Matthew; and the word amen which is the final word of Revelation.
The vellum bindings come from the combined workshops of Claudia Cohen and Sarah Creighton in Easthampton, Massachusetts.”
More at the publisher’s website.
Other collaborations with Barry Moser include:
Spirit of the River, by Russell Banks
The Gatekeeper, by Joyce Carol Oates
