A modest and well-thumbed book of psalms printed in 1640 in the New England wilderness by early colonists could become the most expensive written volume sold at auction.
The Bay Psalm Book ( pictured) – one of just 11 still in existence – is expected to fetch up to £18m (R294m) when it goes under the hammer at Sotheby’s in New York.
Printed as an act of rebellion against the religious leaders of the mother country by the puritan settlers 20 years after the sailing of the Mayflower, it is the first manuscript to have been written or printed in what is now the US.
The tome is written in English but harks back to the original Hebrew psalms in a bitter rejection of the Latin tradition the pilgrims left behind.
The original 1 700 copies not only helped pave the way for a separation of churches, but sowed the intellectual seeds for Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and full-blown American independence.
If it reaches its expected price tag it would shatter the record held by The Birds of America by John James Audubon, a copy of which sold for £7.12m in 2010.
David Redden, chairman of Sotheby’s Worldwide Books department, said it would almost certainly remain in the US.
“This was a new translation created in an act of defiance of the Church of England,” he said. “It was a very complicated procedure. They were there, literally, in the wilderness, producing a 300-page book. It was designed to be carried in the pocket and taken to church.
“It is a simple book, not elaborate, but designed to be used. In fact, they were used to such an extent that many would have simply fallen to pieces.”
The book, whose formal title is The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre, is one of five originally acquired by the historic Old South Church in Boston, Massachusetts where Benjamin Franklin was baptised.
It is selling one of its two remaining copies to fund building and charity work. The printing press was brought to British North America by a Calvinist minister, Josse Glover, who died on the long voyage across the Atlantic.
Work began in 1639 and was rapidly taken up by local congregations. Massachusetts soon outstripped Oxford and Cambridge to be the largest English language printing centre next to London.
There are a number of errors. The word “psalm” is spelt differently on opposing pages and the work has been described by one expert as “rather shoddily done”.
More than 50 editions were later produced as it grew in popularity. However, a copy of the psalms, described as “too rare to collect,” has not been sold since 1947 when it set a record – outstripping copies of the Gutenberg Bible and Shakespeare’s First Folio.
The most recent discovery was in Ireland in the 1930s, although other unknown copies are believed to be in existence.
Another copy belongs to The Bodleian Library in Oxford. It was owned by Church of England Bishop, Thomas Tanner, and was one of many titles said to have been dropped overboard when he was moving his library by riverboat to Oxford. It has since been rebound.
Copies are also held in The Library of Congress, The New York Public Library, Yale University Library and Harvard College Library. – The Independent