Bay Psalm Book

The Bay Psalm Book, the original title The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre, was the first book that was printed in the English colonies on American soil. It appeared in 1640 in Cambridge (Massachusetts ).

It is a new translation of the Psalter. The Puritan settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony had indeed brought some Psalter from Europe to New England, but were their spiritual leaders do not seem convinced of their sense of loyalty, and so they gave a new translation in the light of the Hebrew original in order, by a Council "Thirty learned and pious pastors " was executed. For the pressure had been imported a printing press from England - the first in North America. About the authorship of the preface is disputed to this day; many analysts expect it to Richard Mather, John Cotton other.

In the third edition of 1651 some irregularities were smoothed, and this new version was in New England until the 18th century as The New England Psalm Book in use, then it was from the metric as poetic equal more elegant version of the King James Bible replaced. It also saw in England and Scotland some conditions. The ninth American edition of 1698 was the first that was printed with notes.

Eleven copies of the first edition have been preserved, one of which is preserved in the Library of Congress. In November 2013, New York got one at Sotheby's for auction, which comes from the collection of the Boston Old South Church. It was sold for $ 14,165,000, making it the most expensive printed book ever to be auctioned.

Digitised

• Wilberforce Eames (ed.): The Bay Psalm Book: Being a Facsimile Reprint of the First Edition, Printed by Stephen Daye at Cambridge, in New England in 1640, Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, 1903 ( facsimile of the first edition. . of 1640 )