''The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre'', commonly called the Bay Psalm Book, is a
metrical psalter
A metrical psalter is a kind of Bible translation: a book containing a verse translation of all or part of the Book of Psalms in vernacular poetry, meant to be sung as hymns in a church. Some metrical psalters include melodies or harmonisa ...
first printed in 1640 in
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ...
,
. It was the first
book
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this phys ...
printed in
British North America
British North America comprised the colonial territories of the British Empire in North America from 1783 onwards. English overseas possessions, English colonisation of North America began in the 16th century in Newfoundland (island), Newfound ...
. The
psalms
The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived f ...
in it are
metrical translations into English. The translations are not particularly polished, and none have remained in use, although some of the tunes to which they were sung have survived (for instance, "
Old 100th"); however, its production, just 20 years after the
Pilgrims' arrival at
Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west.
Plymout ...
, Massachusetts, represents a considerable achievement. It went through several editions and remained in use for well over a century.
In November 2013, one of eleven known surviving copies of the first edition sold at auction for $14.2 million, a record for a printed book.
[The World's Most Expensive Book]
Rare Book Room, abebooks.com
Retrieved November 14, 2013.
History
17th century
The early residents of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as the ...
brought with them several books of psalms: the ''
Ainsworth Psalter
The Ainsworth Psalter was written by English Separatist clergyman Henry Ainsworth
Henry Ainsworth (1571–1622) was an English Nonconformist clergyman and scholar. He led the Ancient Church, a Brownist or English Separatist congregation in Ams ...
'' (1612), compiled by
Henry Ainsworth for use by
Puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. P ...
"
separatists
Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seeking greate ...
" in Holland; the ''
Ravenscroft Psalter
Ravenscroft may refer to:
People
* John Ravenscroft (disambiguation), several people
* Christopher Ravenscroft (born 1946), English actor
* Edward Ravenscroft (c. 1654–1697), English dramatist
* Edward James Ravenscroft (1816–1890), author ...
'' (1621); and the ''
Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter'' (1562), of which there were several editions. Evidently they were dissatisfied with the translations from
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
in these several psalters and wished for some that were closer to the original. They hired "thirty pious and learned Ministers", including
Richard Mather,
Thomas Mayhew
Governor Thomas Mayhew, the Elder (March 31, 1593 – March 25, 1682) established the first European settlement on Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and adjacent islands in 1642. He is one of the editors of the Bay Psalm Book, the first book published ...
, and
John Eliot,
to undertake a new translation, which they presented here. The tunes to be sung to the new translations were the familiar ones from their existing psalters.
The first printing was the third product of the
Stephen Day (sometimes spelled ''Daye'') press, and consisted of a 148 small
quarto
Quarto (abbreviated Qto, 4to or 4º) is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produc ...
leaves, including a 12-page preface, "The Psalmes in Metre", "An Admonition to the Reader", and an extensive list of ''
errata'' headed "Faults escaped in printing". As with subsequent editions of the book, Day printed the book for sale by the first bookseller in British America,
Hezekiah Usher
Hezekiah Usher (1615 – May 14, 1676) of Boston was the first known bookseller in British America. The first books printed in the thirteen colonies were published and sold by Usher.
Early life
Usher was born in 1615. The medieval record ...
, whose shop at that time was also located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
An estimated 1,700 copies of the first edition were printed.
[BBC News: Bay Psalm Book: Why the £18m price tag?]
(accessed 27 November 2013)
The third edition (1651) was extensively revised by
Henry Dunster
Henry Dunster (November 26, 1609 (baptized) – February 27, 1658/59) was an Anglo-American Puritan clergyman and the first president of Harvard College. Brackney says Dunster was "an important precursor" of the Baptist denomination in America ...
and Richard Lyon. The revision was entitled ''The Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs of the
Old and
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
, faithfully translated into English metre''. This revision was the basis for all subsequent editions, and was popularly known as the ''New England Psalter'' or ''New England Version''. The ninth edition (1698), the first to contain music, included 13 tunes from
John Playford
John Playford (1623–1686/7) was a London bookseller, publisher, minor composer, and member of the Stationers' Company, who published books on music theory, instruction books for several instruments, and psalters with tunes for singing in churc ...
's ''A Breefe Introduction to the Skill of Musick'' (London, 1654).
18th century
The expansion of the
neoclassical movement in England led to an evolution in the singing of psalms. These changes found their way to America and subsequently new psalm versions were written. In the early part of the 18th century several updated psalms, notably those written by
Tate and Brady and by
Isaac Watts
Isaac Watts (17 July 1674 – 25 November 1748) was an English Congregational minister, hymn writer, theologian, and logician. He was a prolific and popular hymn writer and is credited with some 750 hymns. His works include " When I Survey the ...
, were published. Shortly thereafter several congregations in New England elected to replace the ''Bay Psalm Book'' with these new titles.
In 1718,
Cotton Mather
Cotton Mather (; February 12, 1663 – February 13, 1728) was a New England Puritan clergyman and a prolific writer. Educated at Harvard College, in 1685 he joined his father Increase as minister of the Congregationalist Old North Meetin ...
undertook the revision of the original ''Bay Psalm Book'' which he had studied since youth. Two subsequent revisions were published in 1752, by
John Barnard of Marblehead and in 1758 by
Thomas Prince. Prince was a clergyman at the
Old South Church in Boston. He convinced the members of the congregation of the need to produce a revised, more scholarly, edition of the ''Bay Psalm Book''. Unfortunately, Prince's version was not accepted outside of his membership and in 1789, the Old South Church reverted to the earlier edition published by Isaac Watts.
Title page
The title page of the first edition of 1640 reads:
An example of the text
"Psalm 23" provides an example of the translation, style and versification of the text of the ''Bay Psalm Book'':
Extant copies and auction records
Eleven copies of the first edition of the ''Bay Psalm Book'' are still known to exist,
[Thomas Heath]
Billionaire David Rubenstein buys colonial Bay Psalm Book for $14.2 million
''Washington Post'' (November 27, 2013). of which only five copies are complete. Only one of the eleven copies is currently held outside the United States. One copy is owned by each of the following:
A 1648 edition, described in ''American Book Prices Current'' as the "Emerson Copy", fetched $15,000 on May 3, 1983, at New England Book Auctions in
South Deerfield, Massachusetts. On September 17, 2009,
Swann Galleries
Swann Galleries is a New York City auction house founded in 1941. It is a specialist auctioneer of antique and rare works on paper, and it is considered the oldest continually operating New York specialist auction house.
The company has separat ...
auctioned an early edition, c. 1669–1682, bound with an Edinburgh Bible, for $57,600.
See also
*
Codex Leicester, which holds the record for the sale price of any book
*
House of the First Print Shop in the Americas
The House of the First Printing Press in the Americas ( es, Casa de la Primera Imprenta de América) at the corner of Moneda and Licenciado Primo Verdad streets in Mexico City was the home of the first printing press/print shop in the New World. T ...
*
John Ratcliff
*
Metrical psalter
A metrical psalter is a kind of Bible translation: a book containing a verse translation of all or part of the Book of Psalms in vernacular poetry, meant to be sung as hymns in a church. Some metrical psalters include melodies or harmonisa ...
*
List of most expensive books and manuscripts
Notes
External links
{{Commons category, Bay Psalm Book
Fully digitized copyof the original 1640 edition from the
John Carter Brown Library
The John Carter Brown Library is an independently funded research library of history and the humanities on the campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The library's rare book, manuscript, and map collections encompass a variety of ...
collection available at the
World Digital Library
The World Digital Library (WDL) is an international digital library operated by UNESCO and the United States Library of Congress.
The WDL has stated that its mission is to promote international and intercultural understanding, expand the volume ...
Arch. G e.40Digital facsimile from the Bodleian Library
Bay Psalm BookFrom th
at the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The librar ...
The preface to the bookReprint of the First Edition
1640 books
1640 in the Thirteen Colonies
1640 in Massachusetts
Calvinist texts
History of Cambridge, Massachusetts
Psalters
New England Puritanism
History of mass media