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[John Newton interest]
The Holy Bible, containing the Old Testament and New
Estimate: £300 - £500
Auction: 18 June 2025 from 10:00 BST
Description
Cambridge: printed by John Archdeacon, and sold by John Beechcroft [and others], 1773. 8vo (19.5 x 13.2cm), unpaginated, collates A-3C8 3D2 3E-3T8 3U2 (-3U2, final leaf of Revelation, absent), inscribed ‘Revd J Newton St Mary Woolnoth’ to the general title-page, the final page of the Old Testament, and title-page of the New Testament, with a further example of the same inscription on the first page of the New Testament shaved by the binder, the general title-page additionally inscribed ‘Pulpit Bible’ at head and ‘Let him that stole steal no more’, possibly in the same hand as the previous inscriptions, additional annotation to 2H2 (Job 40:4), several ink markings highlighting certain passages (perhaps 10 in total). Binding and condition: 19th-century diced calf, front board detached, rear board just remaining attached to spine but spine detached from textblock, contents toned, intermittent spotting and browning to margins, occasionally extending into a text, a few ink-stains and other blemishes, side-notes often shaved, lacking T6-8 (part of II Samuel) and 3U2 (q.v.), final extant leaf 3U2 misbound
Footnote
A fascinating relic of one of the most important figures in the history of modern Christian spirituality, bearing the putative ownership inscriptions of John Newton (1725-1807), the reformed slave trader turned evangelical Church of England clergyman and leading light in the abolition movement, remembered today as the author of ‘Amazing Grace’, one of the most widely recognised and performed pieces of music ever written. The forms of the capital letters ‘J’ and 'N' in the inscriptions are characteristic of John Newton's autograph, though there is less resemblance in the overall ductus and the lower-case letterforms. It can be imagined that the inscriptions were made by an admiring contemporary or parishioner of Newton's familiar with his hand. ‘In January 1780 Newton accepted the offer from John Thornton of the benefice of St Mary Woolnoth with St Mary Woolchurch, Lombard Street, London. The living was worth just over £260 a year and the church itself had been built by Nicholas Hawksmoor, in 1727, in a fashionable, baroque style. This was an important city living at a time when William Romaine was the only other evangelical incumbent in London … Unlike his extensive parish ministry at Olney, St Mary Woolnoth was for Newton chiefly a pulpit since the church looked out on a highly mobile, cosmopolitan population with little parochial identity … Throughout his ministry in London people came from afar to hear him, and his congregations were large … Increasingly Newton gained the status of a patriarch within the emerging evangelical party, and his home was regularly crowded with younger ministers eager to glean wisdom from him’ (ODNB).