BIBLE, in English – The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments; Translated Literally from the Original Tongues. Translated by Julia Evelina Smith (1792-1886). Hartford, CT: American Publishing company, 1876.

Pristine copy of the first edition of the first complete translation of the Bible into English by a woman. Julia Evelina Smith was a Connecticut suffragette who studied Greek, Latin, and Hebrew as part of her project to produce an accurate contemporary language translation of the Bible. Of the occasional strangeness produced by her determined literalism, she writes in the preface: "I think the promiscuous use of the tenses shows that there must be something hidden, that we must search out, and not hold to the outward, for the 'letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.'" Darlow & Moule 2002.

Octavo (240 x 161mm). 2pp. translator's preface; part title for New Testament. Original publisher's pebbled black cloth with title gilt on cover, edges speckled red.