Suggested Reading

The King James Bible

Numerous editions of the King James Bible are available. A major recent scholarly edition is The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible (2005), edited by David Norton, which is available in paperback as The Bible: King James Version with the Apocrypha, New York: Penguin Books, 2006.

Manifold Greatness

Manifold Greatness: The Making of the King James Bible (2011), edited by Helen Moore and Julian Reid, is a richly illustrated collection of new essays by British and American scholars, produced by Bodleian Library Publishing in conjunction with the Manifold Greatness exhibitions at the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to essays about the making of the King James Bible, it includes essays on earlier English Bibles and on the King James Bible’s “afterlives,” both in England and in the United States. Learn more.

Other Books and Articles

Allen, Ward, ed. Translating for King James: Notes Made by a Translator of King James’s Bible. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1969.

—. Translating the New Testament Epistles, 1604–1611: A Manuscript from King James’s Westminster Company. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1977.

Alter, Robert. Pen of Iron: American Prose and the King James Bible. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010.

Burke, David G., ed. Translation that Openeth the Window: Reflections on the History and Legacy of the King James Bible. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009.

Butterworth, Charles C. The Literary Lineage of the King James Bible, 1340–1611. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1941.

Campbell, Gordon. Bible: The Story of the King James Version, 1611–2011. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Cross, F.L., ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Crystal, David. Begat: The King James Bible and the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Daiches, David. The King James Version of the English Bible: An Account of the Development and Sources of the English Bible of 1611 with Special Reference to the Hebrew Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941.

Daniell, David. The Bible in English: Its History and Influence. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.

—. William Tyndale: A Biography. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.

De Hamel, Christopher. The Book: A History of the Bible. London: Phaidon, 2001.

Ferrell, Lori Anne. The Bible and the People. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.

Frerichs, Ernest S., ed. The Bible and Bibles in America. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988.

Greenslade, S.L., ed. The Cambridge History of the Bible: Volume 3, The West from the Reformation to the Present Day. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1963.

Gutjahr, Paul C. An American Bible: A History of the Good Book in the United States, 1777–1880. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.

Hamlin, Hannibal, and Norman Jones, eds. The King James Bible After Four Hundred Years: Literary, Linguistic, and Cultural Influences. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Hammond, Gerald. The Making of the English Bible. Manchester, England: Carcanet New Press, 1982.

Hatch, Nathan O., and Mark A. Noll, eds. The Bible in America: Essays in Cultural History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.

Herbert, Arthur Sumner. Historical Catalogue of Printed Editions of the English Bible 1525–1961; Revised and Expanded from the Edition of T.H. Darlow and H.F. Moule, 1903. New York: American Bible Society, 1968.

Hills, Margaret T. The English Bible in America: A Bibliography of Editions of the Bible & New Testament Published in America 1777–1957. New York: American Bible Society, 1961.

Karkov, Catherine E. Text and Picture in Anglo-Saxon England: Narrative Strategies in the Junius 11 Manuscript. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Katz, David S. God’s Last Words: Reading the English Bible from the Reformation to Fundamentalism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.

King, John N., ed. Voices of the English Reformation: A Sourcebook. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.

Lemon, Rebecca, Emma Mason, Jonathan Roberts, and Christopher Rowland, eds. The Blackwell Companion to the Bible in English Literature. Chichester, United Kingdom, and Malden, Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.

Lewis, C.S. “The Literary Impact of the Authorized Version,” in They Asked for a Paper: Papers and Addresses. London: Geoffrey Bles, 1962. 26–50.

Long, Lynne. Translating the Bible: From the 7th to the 17th century. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001.

Luckett, Richard. Handel’s Messiah: A Celebration. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1992.

Matthew, H.C.G., and Brian Harrison, eds. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. This reference is also available as an on-site (and in some cases, remote access) digital resource through many universities, libraries, and other institutions; consult Oxford DNB.

Nicolson, Adam. God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Published in Great Britain in 2003 by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. as Power and Glory: Jacobean England and the Making of the King James Bible.

Norton, David. A History of the English Bible as Literature. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

—. The King James Bible: A Short History from Tyndale to Today. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

—. A Textual History of the King James Bible. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Opfell, Olga S. The King James Bible Translators. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 1982.

Pollard, Alfred W. Records of the English Bible: The Documents Relating to the Translation and Publication of the Bible in English, 1525–1611. London: Oxford University Press, 1911.

Saenger, Paul, and Kimberly Van Kampen, eds. The Bible as Book: The First Printed Editions. New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 1999.

Thuesen, Peter Johannes. In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles over Translating the Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Wimbush, Vincent L., ed. African Americans and the Bible: Sacred Texts and Social Textures. New York: Continuum, 2000.

Ziegler, Georgianna, ed. Elizabeth I: Then and Now. Washington, DC: Folger Shakespeare Library; Seattle: distributed by the University of Washington Press, 2003.

Costumes from the time of James I, table scene. Gouache on vellum drawing, early 1600s. Shelfmark ART Vol. c91 no.8c. Folger Shakespeare Library.

Costumes from the time of James I, table scene. Drawing, early 1600s. Folger Shakespeare Library.


William Barlow. The summe and substance of the conference, which, it pleased his excellent majestie to have with the lords, bishops, and other of his clergie, (at which the most of the lordes of the councell were present) in his majesties privy-chamber, at Hampton Court. January 14. 1603. Contracted by William Barlow, Doctor of Divinity, and Deane of Chester. Whereunto are added, some copies, (scattered abroad,) unsavory, and untrue. London, 1604. Shelfmark STC 1456. Folger Shakespeare Library.

William Barlow. The summe and substance of the conference... at Hampton Court. London, 1604. Folger Shakespeare Library.


The New Testament of ovr Lord Iesvs Christ. Translated out of the Greeke by Theod. Beza, and Englished by L. Tomson. Bound with: The Whole booke of Psalmes. London: Robert Barker, 1609. Shelfmark STC 2907. Folger Shakespeare Library.<br />

Bible. New Testament. English. Geneva-Tomson. London, 1609. Folger Shakespeare Library.


A curious hieroglyphick Bible, or Select passages in the Old and New Testaments... [Worcester]: Isaiah Thomas, 1788. Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

A curious hieroglyphick Bible. [Worcester]: Isaiah Thomas, 1788. Library of Congress.


Courtesy Knopf Publishers, New York. Photograph by Julie Ainsworth.

Courtesy Knopf Publishers, New York

Bible. English. Great Bible. London, 1540. Shelfmark STC 2070. Folger Shakespeare Library.

Bible. English. Great Bible. London, 1540. Folger Shakespeare Library.


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