University of Virginia Library

The Holy Pirates: Legal Enforcement in England of the Patent in the Authorized Version of the Bible ca. 1800
by
G.E. BENTLEY, JR. [*]

Introduction

The copyright in the King James translation or Authorised Version of the Bible of 1611 is vested in England in perpetuity in the Crown and delegated thence to the King's Printer (who may change from time to time), and by him it is shared with the learned presses of Oxford and Cambridge Universities. In practice this has meant that only these presses have been entitled to print and sell the King James translation in England.

The privilege has proven a valuable one, but it has been used in different ways by the different presses. For many years, Cambridge printed no Bible at all; at one time Oxford farmed its privilege to London printers; and, at least in 1680, the King's Printer claimed that the learned presses were authorized to print only learned Bibles, i.e., Bibles in folio and quarto sizes.

The situation was complicated by uncertainty as to what constitutes a "Bible"--does the copyright cover separate publications of, say, the New Testament or the Apocrypha or the Pentateuch or digests of the Bible? What is the copyright in Bibles accompanied by learned dissertations or with erudite footnotes or with illustrations?

Of course, the English patent of 1611 did not extend to Holland or Scotland or Ireland. Printers in Scotland before the Act of Union with Scotland in 1707 and in Ireland before the Act of Union with Ireland in 1800 were perfectly entitled to print the Authorized Version without reference to the Crown copyright--but, since the conventions largely concerned printing, there was some uncertainty as to whether they could sell them in the vastly more lucrative market in England.

The Bible was, of course, an extremely valuable commodity to printers and booksellers, since every Protestant church and family needed to have its own copy. Speculators were sorely tempted to share in these profits, and some wonderfully ingenious methods were devised for doing so. A commentary on the Bible or a suite of engraved illustrations for the Bible would profit from the popularity of the Bible--and it might sell even better if it were actually attached to a Bible.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, printers and publishers developed

two chief methods to share in the highly profitable monopoly on Bible production in England: (1) Add material that would make the work something beyond a simple Bible, and (2) Print the Authorized Version outside England, in Holland or Dublin or Edinburgh, and sell copies in England.

The illustration of Bibles is particularly interesting in this respect.[1] In general, the King's Printer and the Learned Presses did not print illustrated Bibles, though John Field at Cambridge printed a splendid one in 1659-60, and John Baskett created another at Oxford in 1716-17.[2] From 1659, beginning in Amsterdam and spreading to London and thence to the provinces, suites of Bible illustrations without type-set text were published by speculators for English readers. These were designed to be combined with Bibles printed by the patent-holders--Boydell's Illustrations of Holy Writ (1813) claimed on the titlepage that it was "Calculated to Ornament All Quarto and Octavo Editions of the Bible, and Sold in Parts without The Text".

When no legal impediment was raised to this practise, speculators began in 1688 to issue illustrated works called The History of the Old and New Testament which summarized or even incorporated those parts of the Bible represented in the designs. Eventually, they found that they could publish with impunity annotated and illustrated editions of the Bible, so long as the titles were something other than "The Holy Bible", such as The Family Companion or Annotations upon the Holy Bible (1739) and The Christian's New, Complete, and Universal Family Bible (1794). As "John Reeves, Esq. One of the Patentees of the Office of King's Printer" explained in 1802: "all our authorized Bibles, published by the King's printer, and the Universities, are wholly without explanatory notes. These privileged persons have confined themselves to reprinting the bare text, in which they have an exclusive right; forbearing to publish it with notes, which, it is deemed, may be done by any of the King's subjects as well as themselves."[3] When Thomas Macklin proposed in 1790 to publish an enormously ambitious illustrated Bible, he cautiously requested from Oxford "the use of their privilege", implying that

it would be worth to him "a large Consideration . . . But the Delegates, not thinking themselves warranted to grant the Privilege whether with, or without compensation, . . . Macklin had recourse (for Security) to the printing . . . Notes . . . at the Foot of the page."[4]

However, even the practise of permitting anyone to print the King James translation of the Bible with notes was subject to devious abuse. In 1776 J.W. Pasham printed a curiously-tall duodecimo edition of The Holy Bible with five lines or 3/8 of "NOTES" at the foot of each leaf, thus conforming to the convention of printing with notes. However, as John Reeves complained, "the notes are placed purposely so as to be cut off by the binder".[5] Such deviousness was not confined to the lesser breeds without the patent. A century earlier the London patent holders had complained that the printers "at Oxford . . . print a Bible in Quarto; and so order it that the Marginal Notes in some of the Copies being left out, if in those the Margin be cut close away, they will not be much larger than a large octavo (and these be those which the London printers complain of as being pretended to be Quartos but being really octavos)[.]"[6]

Bible Publishers in Britain 1790-1820

Who were the players in the big leagues of Bible publishing 1790-1820? From the record of published Bibles in Darlow & Moule,[7] it is plain that the

most prolific player was the Clarendon Press in Oxford, with 54 Bibles published 1790-1820, in duodecimo (14), octavo (23), quarto (12), and folio (5).[8] Note that it was chiefly the patent-holders who published Bibles in formats of octavo and smaller and that in Oxford only one Bible published during this period was produced for a publisher other than the Clarendon Press. From 1808, at least 12 of the Clarendon Press Bibles are in stereotype, which means that only the titlepages were reset for "editions" with a new date. Note also that some of these Oxford Bibles were printed by Bensley and others in London and that some were printed for Dawson and for the Bible Societies in London. The "Oxford" connexion of some of these Bibles is pretty tenuous.

All the Oxford editions of the scriptures are called The Holy Bible, and indeed this title is uniformly used by the Bible patent-holders. It is a kind

of claim to authenticity, particularly with the sub-titles "The Old and New Testament" in Oxford Bibles and "The Old Testament and the New" in London and Cambridge ones. Even when Bibles not published by the patent-holders are called The Holy Bible, they often have sub-titles indicating their irregular status, such as "or Divinity Treasury" (1804).

BRITISH BIBLES 1790-1820: OXFORD The Holy Bible (Clarendon Press[9])

                                                           

Date	Format	D&M	Date	Format	D&M
1790	8°	1344	1808	8°	1512
1791	12	13558	1808	12°	1513
1792	12	1367	1810	8°	1529
1793	8°	1380	1810	4°	1533
1794	2°	1384	1810	8°	1534
1794	4°	1386	1811	4°	1542
1794	8°	1387	1811	8°	1550
1794	8°	1388	1812	8° for BFBS	1556
1795	2 °	1389	1812	12° for BFBS	1558
1795	4°	1391	1812	8°	1565
1796	8°	1404	1813	12°	1575
1798	8°	1427	1815	8°	I609
1799	12°	1438	1815	8°	1610
1799	12°	1439	1815	8°	1611
1800	4°	1444	1815	12° for BFBS	1616
1800	8°	1446	1816	4° for BFBS	1638
1801	8°	1451	1816	4°	1639
1801	8°	1452	1816	8°	1640
1801	12°	1454	1816	12°	1641
1803	12°	1466	1817	4° for SPCK	1648
1804	8° for SPCK	1474	1817	2 ° by Bartlett & Co.	1654
1804	4°	1476	1817	8° for BFBS	1664
1805	8°	1482	1817	12 ° for BFBS	1665
1806	2°	1497	1818	12°	1670
1807	2°	1498	1819	4°	1680
1807	8°	1503	1819	4°	1681
1808	4°	1511	1819	12°	1682
TOTAL Oxford Bibles: 54
TOTAL Oxford Bibles (by the Clarendon Press): 53

The second largest printer of Bibles in England 1790-1820 is Cambridge University Press through the printers to the University J. Archdeacon & J. Bruges (1790-1802), R. Watts (1804-6), and J. Smith (1810-18), who produced among them 27 Bibles in sextodecimo (1), duodecimo (7), octavo (14), and quarto (5). Note the absence of any folio as well as the small number of quartos. Further, all the Bibles of 1812-18 in sextodecimo, octavo, and quarto, were in stereotype, and some were for the Bible Society.

BRITISH BIBLES 1790-1820: CAMBRIDGE
The Holy Bible

                                                         

Date	Publisher	Format	D&M
1790	J. Archdeacon	8°	1345
1790	J. Archdeacon	12°	1347
1791	J. Archdeacon	12°	1357
1792	J. Archdeacon	12°	1368
1795	J. Archdeacon & John Burges[10]	12°	1393
1795	J. Archdeacon & J. Burges	8°	1396
1795	J. Archdeacon & J. Burges	12 °	1397
1796	J. Archdeacon & J. Burges	8°	1410
1797	J.Burges	12°	1417
1798	J. Archdeacon & J. Burges	8°	1424
1798	J.Burges	4°	1426
1798	University Press	8°	1428
1798	J.Burges	12°	1429
1802	J.Burges	4°	1456
1804	R. Watts	8°	1473
I 8o6	R. Watts for BFBS	8°	1488
1810	J. Smith for BFBS	4°	1528
1812	J. Smith	16°	1557
1812?	J. Smith for BFBS	8°	1561
1815	J. Smith for BFBS	4°	1604
1815	J. Smith for BFBS	4°	1605
1815?	J. Smith for SPCK	8°	1606
1816	J. Smith	8°	1631
1816	J. Smith for BFBS	8°	1636
1817	J. Smith	8°	1663
1817	J. Smith for BFBS	8°	1666
1818	J. Smith	8°	1673
TOTAL Cambridge Bibles (by the University Press): 27

In London, Bibles were produced by the King's Printers J. Reeves (5) and Eyre & Strahan (20), in a full range of sizes, in 64mo (1), 32mo (3), duodecimo (2), octavo (8), quarto (10), and folio (1), including a number from stereotype plates.[11]

At the same time, a very large number of London interlopers were publishing Bibles, sometimes with variant titles such as The Family Bible (1810?) or Evangelical Family Bible (1814) or The New and Grand Imperial Family Bible (1813) but mostly called simply The Holy Bible. The Bibles produced by at least thirty publishers[12] who did not hold the Bible patent were heavily

concentrated upon the larger formats, often illustrated, probably often published by subscription. There were comparatively few in the smaller formats, in sextodecimo (1), duodecimo (7), and octavo (4); most were in quarto (19) and folio (8), and the folios and quartos alone outnumbered all the Bibles published in London by the patent holders. Apparently the speculative Bible-publishers believed that profits were to be found most reliably in the larger formats. It might seem that London was where the most extensive infringements were taking place upon the Bible patent-holders:

BRITISH BIBLES 1790-1820: LONDON
The Holy Bible unless otherwise identified

                                                         

Date	Publisher	Format	D&M
1790	C. Cooke, Christian's New and Complete Family Bible	2 °	1341
1790	T. Rickaby	12°	1346
1792	Bellamy & Roberts	4°	1366
1795	Literary Association	4°	1392
1795	T. Bensley for Bowyer & Fittler	4°	1394
1795	T. Heptinstall	4°	1399
1796	R. Bowyer	8°	1403
1796	R. Bowyer	12°	1405
1796	R. Bowyer & J. Fittler	12 °	1409
1796	M. Ritchie for J. Wright	4°	1411
1797	J. Davis	4°	1416
1799	SPCK	8°	1437
1800	Thomas Bensley for Thomas Macklin	2 °	1442
1800	C. Corrall	12 °	1447
1802	J. Crowder & T. Bensley et al for J. Reeves	8°	1457
1802	J. Reeves	8°	1458
1802	J. Reeves	4°	1459
1805	Lackington, Allen & Co.	4°	1480
1806	W. Flint, Self-Interpreting Bible	4°	1486
1806	G. Woodfall for George Eyre & Andrew Strahan	4°	1487
1809	R.Scholey	8°	1521
1809	J. Seeley	4°	1523
1810	C. Baldwin for L. B. Seeley	4°	1532
1810?	Longman & Co, Family Bible	4°	1535
1811	C. Whittingham for J. Reeves	12 °	1543
1811	C. Whittingham for J. Reeves	12°	1544
1811	Suttaby, Evance & Co &c, Devotional Family Bible	4°	1547
1812	T. Rutt for Bible Society of Philadelphia	12 °	1560

                                                                             

Date	Publisher	Format	D&M
1812	Longman, Hurst &c	4"	1564
1813	S. A. Oddy	2 °	1574
1813	A. Whellier, New and Grand Imperial Family Bible	2 °	1576
1813	G. Woodfall for Eyre & Strahan	4°	1580
1813	Eyre & Strahan for BFBS	8°	1582
1813?	Eyre & Strahan for BFBS	4°	1583
1814	Eyre & Strahan for BFBS	4°	1589
1814	R. Edwards	4°	1592
1814	T. Kelly, Evangelical Family Bible	2 °	1594
1814	Seeley, Hatchard, Baldwin	4°	1595
1814	Eyre & Strahan	64°	1596
1815	Richard Evans, Self-Interpreting Bible	2°	1602
1815	Eyre & Strahan for BFBS	4°	1603
1815	White, Cochrane & Co	8°	1615
1816	J. Jones, Devotional Diamond Pocket Bible	12°	1621
1816	Samuel Bagster, English Version of the Polyglott Bible	12 °	1628
1816	W. Lewis & Co	2 °	1629
1816	W. Lewis & Co, Family Bible	4°	1630
1816	Corrall Eyre & Strahan	32 °	1632
1816	Eyre & Strahan for BFBS	2 °	1635
1816	Eyre & Strahan	32 °	1637
1816?	Eyre & Strahan for BFBS	4°	1642
1816?	Eyre & Strahan for BFBS	8 °	1643
1817	Barnard & Farley for Walker & Edwards, Self-Interpreting Bible	4°	1653
1817	T. Kelly	2 °	1656
1817	Eyre & Strahan	32 °	1657
1817	Eyre & Strahan for BFBS	4°	1660
1817	Eyre & Strahan for BFBS	4°	1661
1817	Eyre & Strahan for BFBS	4°	1662
1818	T.Cordeux	4°	1671
1818	Eyre & Strahan for BFBS	8°	1672
1818	Eyre & Strahan for BFBS	8°	1674
1818	Longman et al	4°	1675
1819	Eyre & Strahan for Longman &c	8°	1683
1819	Eyre & Strahan for Longman &c	8°	1684
1819	S. Bagster, Old and New Testament	16°	1685
TOTAL London Bibles: 64
TOTAL London Bibles (by the King's Printers): 24

However, the greatest threat to the Bible patent-holders in England was probably from the King's printers in Edinburgh.[13] There 32 Bibles were published by Mark & Charles Kerr in 1790-1798 (13), J. H. Blair & J. Bruce in 1799 (1), and Sir D. Hunter Blair & J. Bruce in 1802-17 (18), in all the formats: 32° (3), 24° (1), sextodecimo (2), duodecimo (14), octavo (5), quarto (8), and folio (1). Notice that in just one year, 1793, J. & C. Kerr produced Bibles in folio, quarto, duodecimo, and 24°, and printed new editions in duodecimo in 1795, 1796 (2), and 1797. Plainly they were preparing to keep a stock of all sizes of Bibles in print. And as the Oxford Bible Minutes reveal, they were equally clearly selling in England these Bibles printed with the King's privilege in Scotland.

There is very little information about the size of the editions of the Bibles recorded by Darlow & Moule, but they do note that the Douay Bibles printed by John Moir in Edinburgh for sale "chiefly in England and Ireland" in 1796 in duodecimo and in 1805 in quarto consisted of three thousand copies and two thousand copies respectively, and these may have been something like the norms at least for Bibles in similar formats.

BRITISH BIBLES 1790-1820: EDINBURGH
The Holy Bible

                                           

Date	Publisher	Format	D&M	Date	Publisher	Format	D&M
1790	Mark & Charles Kerr	12 °	1349	1805	John Moir[14]	4°	1483
1791	M. & C. Kerr	4°	1355	1806	Sir D. Hunter Blair & J. Bruce	4°	1491
1791	M. & C. Kerr	32 °	1360
1793	M. & C. Kerr	2°	1376	1806	ibid	16°	1492
1793	M. & C. Kerr	4°	1378	1806	ibid	12°	1493
1793	M. & C. Kerr	12°	1382	1807	ibid	32°	1504
1793	M.& C. Kerr	24°	1383	1808	ibid	8°	1515
1795	M. & C. Kerr	12°	1398	1809	ibid	8°	1524
1796	M. & C. Kerr	12°	1406	1809	ibid	12°	1525
1796	M. & C. Kerr	12°	1407	1811	ibid	8°	1545
1796	John Moir	12°	1408	1811	ibid	12°	1546
1797	M.& C. Kerr	12°	1418	1811	ibid	4°	1548
1797	M.& C. Kerr	4°	1419	1813	ibid	4°	1581
1798	M. & C. Kerr	16°	1434	1814	ibid	4°	1593
1799	Sir J [ames] H [unter] Blair & J. Bruce	12°	1440	1815	ibid	8°	1608
				1816	ibid	12°	1623
1802	Sir D. Hunter Blair & J. Bruce	32 °	1461	1816	ibid	12 °	1633
				1817	ibid	12°	1655
1803	ibid	8°	1465
TOTAL Edinburgh Bibles: 34
TOTAL Edinburgh Bibles (by the King's Printers): 32

Outside Oxford, Cambridge, London, and Edinburgh (the cities of the patent-holders), thirty-four Bibles were produced in fifteen different provincial

cities, some of them very provincial indeed: in Berwick (2), Birmingham, Bristol (2), Bungay (4), Dublin (9), Halifax, Helston, Kidderminster, Lewes, Liverpool (2), Manchester (4), Newcastle (2), Stokeley, Stourbridge (2), and Yarmouth. Considering Dublin's notoriety as a centre for printing English works beyond the reach of English copyright law, it is as surprising that only nine Bibles were printed in Dublin as that one was printed in Helston (Cornwall) and four in Bungay. Only a few of the Dublin Bibles were the Catholic Douay version (1791, 1794, 1811, 1814), all called The Holy Bible. Almost half the King James versions were called The Family Bible (1793, 1803, 1804, 1805, 1807, 1812, 1813, 1814, 1815, 1816), usually with additional adjectives such as The Royal Standard Devotional Family Bible.

But the most striking feature of these provincial interlopers is their format: 88% are in folio (14) and quarto (16). Many, probably most, of these massive works were issued by subscription, and most were illustrated and heavily annotated. Clearly it was felt that the large format Bibles were the ones most likely to prove profitable.

BRITISH BIBLES 1790-1820: OUTSIDE LONDON, OXFORD,
CAMBRIDGE, EDINBURGH
The Holy Bible unless otherwise identified

                                           

Date	Place & Publisher	Format	D&M
1790	Dublin: G. Grierson	4°	1342
1791	Dublin: G. Grierson	18°	1359
1793	Newcastle: M. Brown	2°	1365
1793	Manchester: J. Radford	2°	1375
1793	Dublin: Zachariah Jackson, Universal Family Bible	2°	1377
1793	Berwick: John Taylor for SPCK	4°	1379
1794	Dublin: J. Reilly	2°	1385
1800	Helston:[15] Thomas Flinde	4°	1445
1801	Dublin: G. Grierson	2°	1453
1802	Bristol: Richard Edwards	12°	1460
1803	Halifax: Nicholson& Walker, Christian's New and Complete Family Bible	4°	1464
1803	Bristol: John Fenley, Jr for John Parsons	12°	1467
1804	Bungay: C. Brightly, New Family Bible	4°	1471
1804	Kidderminster: G. Gower	4°	1472
1804	Newcastle: M. Angus & Son	4°	1475
1805	Liverpool: J. Nuttall, Christian's Complete Family Bible	2°	1478
1805	Birmingham: Knott& Lloyd	4°	1479
1807	Stourbridge: J. Herring, Complete Family Bible	2°	1499
1807	Manchester: J. Russell	2°	1500
1809	Dublin: G. Grierson	4°	1522
1811	Lewes: J. Baxter	4°	1549

                           

Date	Place & Publisher	Format	D&M
1811	Dublin: R. Coyne	12 °	1551
1812	Stokeley: W. Pratt & Co, Christian's Family Bible	4°	1565
1815	Liverpool: Nuttall, Fisher & Dixon	2°	1577
1815	Berwick: William Lochhead, Christian's Complete Family Bible	4°	1578
1815	Manchester: Oswald Syers	2°	1579
1814	Bungay: Brightly & Childs, Self-Interpreting Bible	2°	1588
1814	Manchester: T. Haydock	2°	1590
1814	Stourbridge: J. Heming, Imperial Family Bible	4°	1591
1815?	Yarmouth: Keymer & Co, Royal Standard Devotional Family Bible	4°	1620
1816	Bungay: Brightly & Childs for T. Kinnersley, Self-Interpreting Bible	2°	1622
1816	Dublin: J. Charles, Christian's Complete Family Bible	4°	1624
1816	Bungay: Brightly & Childs, Imperial Expositor and Family Bible	4°	1625
1816	Dublin: Richard Coyne	2 °	1634

A similar pattern is visible in the thirty-nine London Bibles produced by publishers other than the King's Printers. Twelve of them have titles other than simply The Holy Bible, half of these are a version of The Family Bible, and 69% are in quarto (18) or folio (9).

For all the complete Bibles published in Britain in 1790-1820, according to Darlow & Moule, 136 were produced by the patent-holders (53 in Oxford, 32 in Edinburgh, 27 in Cambridge, and 24 in London), while 78 were published by others, almost all of them in London (40) or in provincial cities other than Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh (35). In terms of the Bible sales of the English patent-holders, the greatest threat to the luxury trade in expensive quartos and folios came from a large number (56) of mostly small-scale publishers scattered from London to Helston and Halifax.

However, the threat to their bread-and-butter trade in the smaller formats, in octavos and duodecimos, came from just one source: The King's Printers in Edinburgh, who produced 32 Bibles during this period, the vast majority of them (72%) in these smaller formats. From the point of view of the English patent-holders, and particularly of Oxford, the most vigorous of the English patent-holders, the greatest threat to the monopoly they claimed on publication of the King James translation, or rather on its sale in England, came from the King's Printers in Edinburgh.

In the latter part of the eighteenth century the Edinburgh printers were becoming more and more aggressive. When what the London printers had understood to be perpetual copyright in all literary works was limited by the judgement in the case of Donaldson vs Beckett in 1774 to fourteen years (renewable for another fourteen years in most circumstances and extended in later copyright acts), the Scottish printers gleefully began printing all manner of English books and selling them in England. And not only did they use English booksellers as their agents, but they printed the Authorized Version of the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and other works in perpetual Crown copyright in England--and sold them too in England. Their right to print such works was clear, since an English copyright of 1611 did not extend to Scotland, but their right to sell such works in England was not so clear--or at least it was not so clear to the English patent-holders.

Though the patent for the Authorized Version belonged to the Crown and was delegated primarily to the King's Printer, Oxford University Press was apparently most active in defending the privilege against English pirates and Scots cruising under alleged letters of marque. The Clarendon Press, after all, printed more editions of the Bible than the Cambridge University Press and the King's Printers in London combined. The infringements against which Oxford campaigned to defend the Bible patent most vigorously were Bibles published with additions, so that they did not count simply as Bibles, and Bibles printed (legally) outside England but imported into England for sale and therefore overlapping with the royal privilege for England. The two campaigns were carried on simultaneously, against both domestic enemies printing padded Bibles and foreign enemies printing mere Bibles. (Notice that no padded edition of the Authorized Version was printed in Scotland during these years.)

The first campaign was against domestic enemies. According to the "Minutes of the Committee appointed by the Delegates of the Press for conferring with the Partners in the Bible trade"[16] for 26 October 1796, the London partners (i.e., Thomas Bensley[17]and James Cooke) "represent that several Pirated Editions [of the Bible] have been printed of late & that the number of them is increasing, two of which were this day exhibited." Perhaps the Bibles exhibited were those of 1796 printed for R. Bowyer (duodecimo and quarto), R. Bowyer & J. Fittler (duodecimo), or J. Wright (quarto).

A manuscript summary headed "Case of the University of Oxford upon their Right of printing Bibles and common prayer &c" (1797) asserts:

The University asked its solicitors

To these questions, William Scott, John Scott, and John Mitford, of Lincoln's Inn, responded on 13 April 1797 that

Oxford and Cambridge therefore joined with the King's Printers to issue warnings to those encroaching upon their privileges, but with less than the desired effect. According to the Oxford Bible Press Committee minutes for 21 October 1800,

The King's Printers may have agreed with Oxford and Cambridge, but they apparently left the learned presses to undertake the trouble and expense of such a defence of their common interests.

Just a year later, on 21 October 1801,

And three months later, on 26 January 1802,

On 29 January 1802 the Court of Chancery issued an injunction against Messrs Richardson[21]"for selling or exposing to sale, any copies or impressions of the Bible, Testament, Book of Common Prayer, &c. printed by his Majesty's Printer in Scotland",[22] but the same day "Messrs Bensley & Cooke reported, that the trade still suffers from the encroachments of others against whom Injunctions have not been granted, who continue to vend Scotch books".[23] However, on 11 May 1802, "Messrs Bensley & Cooke reported . . . that the general State of the Trade appears to have been improving, since the injunctions have been granted by the Court of Chancery against Richardson & Corral".

The case of the universities was promptly sustained by the Lord High Chancellor, and on 1 March 1802 William Richardson, John Richardson, and James Richardson appealed to the House of Lords against the order preventing them

The House of Lords confirmed the Lord High Chancellor's decision on 4 May 1804, and Oxford, Cambridge, and the King's Printer gave notice on 23 July 1805 "that legal means will be taken" against those who sell such works without privilege.[25]

However, the universities could not be confident that the King's Printers were their allies. On 23 January 1804, "Messrs Dawson, Bensley & Cooke report that the trend[?] of the encroachment in the [Bible] Privilege encreases, & has even taken a new shape--That not only Mr Reeves but Mr Strachan [i.e., Andrew Strahan] also have taken the measure of communicating their privilege to others"--that is, they have sold to others the right to print the Bible.

The problem of Bible pirates and of what constitutes a Bible pirate persisted. For instance, could a Bible patent-holder be at the same time a Bible pirate? Was it legal for a Bible patent-holder to license others to print Bibles? A clipping from an unidentified periodical in the Oxford University Press archives dated "1818" in MS summarizes a

LAW REPORT.
VICE-CHANCELLOR'S COURT, Dec. 14.
THE UNIVERSITIES OF OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE v
BLAKE[26] AND OTHERS.

Notice that the injunction appears to be concerned only with Bibles and Prayer Books which have appended "Commentary and Annotations . . . only

to colour an invasion of literary property" or which "professed to be an abridgement". Since annotated and abridged Bibles and Prayer Books had for almost a century been published with impunity by booksellers who had no share in the patent, this implies a radical reinterpretation of the implications of the patent.

Of course, this injunction spread alarm, "terror and dismay" among the booksellers who had for years been selling annotated and illustrated Bibles printed without license from the patent-holders, and another clipping in the Oxford University Press archives from an unidentified periodical dated in MS Saturday "Jany 23 1819" reports a

MEETING OF BOOKSELLERS.

There can scarcely have been any ground for claiming that the King's printer and the two university presses had exclusive rights under "the present patent" to print the Bible in any language "with note or without note" . The allegation must have been made ad terrorem either by the patent-holders as an expendable bargaining position or, far more probably, by the booksellers in order to persuade the dismayed and terrified booksellers to contribute generously to the cause. Certainly nothing in the 1818 Law Report makes such

sweeping claims. But whatever the implausibility of the allegation, it was sufficiently convincing to persuade the booksellers to contribute "large sums" to the defence fund.

To the booksellers it must have seemed that all the struggles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to secure access to the Authorized Version of the Bible must be repeated--with the additional threat that they might not be allowed to print even other versions of the Bible. To the patent-holders, it must have seemed that as long as they were resisting the invasions of the Scottish buccanneers, they might as well at the same time attempt to recover the exclusive right to print annotated and illustrated Bibles which they (or at least the King's Printer) had tamely conceded to the booksellers at large at the end of the eighteenth century. Plainly both sides were marshalling their troops along the legal border, enriching their war-chests, spreading propaganda, and preparing for the onset of hostilities for a war that threatened to spread commercial carnage on an international scale.

Alas! the documents I have seen do not enable me to present further battle-bulletins. Injunctions don't get recorded very extensively, even a barrage of them like this. And even if one could get evidence as to whom the injunctions were directed against, one still couldn't draw very useful conclusions unless one could ascertain that the injunctions were breached or that they changed the actions of the injunctee. The documents have, however, made plain some of the principles of literary property at issue in the war, and they have identified the combatants on the two sides fairly plainly. Whatever they said, both sides were fighting under the banner of Mammon, though the patent-holders doubtless preferred to be known as the party of Church and King. The cause of Church and King was vigourously led by Oxford University Press, seconded, at least financially, by Cambridge University Press. The King's Printer in London seems to have permitted the campaign rather than fostered it, and indeed at least in Oxford there seems to have been some suspicion that he had a foot in the enemy camp. Opposed to the Church and King party were most conspicuously the King's Printers in Scotland (Sir D. Hunter Blair & J. Bruce in Edinburgh), but Oxford had initiated hostilities in such a way that most of the substantial book-sellers in Britain were probably ranged against them.

Further, if report of the 1819 Meeting of Booksellers is to be believed, the Church and King party led by Oxford and Cambridge University Presses was not merely defending their ancient privileges of printing and selling unillustrated and unannotated editions of the Authorized Version of the Bible; it was attempting to extend these privileges very substantially, so as to prevent the sale of "any Bible in the English tongue, or in any other tongue whatsoever, of any translation, with note or without note, which is not printed at the press of the King's printer, or at the press[es] of the two Universities". The legal conquest of such a terrain would, of course, have been immensely valuable. And while it is clear that the Church and King party did not conquer this new terrain, it is equally clear that they did maintain their privilege of printing and selling the Authorized Version of the Bible in England.

In some ways, access to the word of God was as hotly contested by booksellers at the beginning of the nineteenth century as it had been among logocentric Protestants in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Should the King's Printers and the university presses have an exclusive right to God's Word as priests had had in former ages? There was money in God's Word, and in the nineteenth century the debate swirled about the issue not of who should read God's Word but of who should make a profit from it. The fortunes of the war are fascinating, but in religious terms there may be some doubt as to whether they are edifying.