Sotheby's in New York held an auction for what turned out to be the world's most valuable (sold) book - $14.16 million paid for one of 11 surviving copies of the rare Bay Psalm Book, which happens to be a piece of Americana gold. It's claim to fame is its history - the first book ever written and printed in what is now the United
States.
FULL TITLE: "The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre.
Whereunto is prefixed a discourse declaring not only the lawfullnes, but
also the necessity of the heavenly Ordinance of singing Scripture
Psalmes in the Churches of God. [epigraphs from Colossians and James]. Imprinted: [at Cambridge, Massachusetts, by Stephen Day,] 1640 "
Congregationalist
Puritans, who settled around Massachusetts Bay in search of religious
freedom, wanted to translate and produce a version of the Book of Psalms
closer to the Hebrew original than the one they had brought over from
England. To distance themselves from the Church of England (one of the first demonstrations of 'religious freedom'), they published their own version: The Bay Psalm Book.
The book auctioned
Tuesday is from the collection of the Old South Church in Boston,
Massachusetts, which had it for more than 300 years. It is one of two
copies in their possession, with the sale intended to support its
mission and ministry in Boston.
Philanthropist David Rubenstein purchased one of 11 surviving copies. Currently, the other 9
surviving versions of the 1,700 originally printed are in institutional
collections, including Harvard, Yale, Oxford, the New York Public
Library and the Huntington Library in California.
The first edition of the
Bay Psalm Book was printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tuesday's sale
is the first time since 1947 and the second time since 1894 that a copy
has appeared at auction. In 1947, it achieved a higher price than any
other book printed at the time, when Sotheby's sold it for $151,000.
"This little book of
1640 was a precursor to Lexington and Concord, and, ultimately, to
American political independence," Redden said. "With it, New England
declared its independence from the Church of England."
Even with not quite making its estimate of $15 million - $30 million, Tuesday's sale eclipses
the previous auction record for a printed book, at Sotheby's London,
when a copy of John James Audubon's Birds of America sold for $11.5
million in 2010.
