Editio princeps: a history of the Gutenberg Bible /

This book's subtitle, lavish illustrations, and large format might well lead one think this volume is an entry-level introduction to the Gutenberg Bible. It is not. Instead, what White (curator of rare books, Princeton Univ. Library) has produced is a specialists' study, a painstaking analysis of what one can learn from editions produced by Johannes Gutenberg and his contemporaries/rivals. Everything a scholar could possibly want to know about the Gutenberg Bible, including details of the 64 remaining copies (complete or in fragments), is here. White offers many insights and revelations, including the documented lack of interest in this masterpiece for several centuries after its first printing. The volume will be tough going for the uninitiated--who will find no discussions of the text of the Vulgate Gutenberg, the illustrations, the procedures Gutenberg and others developed over time through trial and error, and so on. The appearance of pseudo-Gutenberg Bibles is amusingly chronicled. (In this context, fakes are often funny.) This is a necessary resource for specialists, but others will have to look elsewhere for responsible and accessible scholarship about printed Bible translations. Summing Up: Essential. Researchers and faculty.--Leonard J. Greenspoon, Creighton University