Selling the Word of God

The fascinating commercial history of the Bible's first English printings.

The Bible is the most published text in history, and the story of its publication in the English language is extraordinary. Published on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Tyndale's groundbreaking printed translation of the New Testament, Selling the Word of God traces the Bible's evolution from the first printed English New Testament of 1525 to the much-celebrated King James Bible of 1611. By this date, readers could already choose from over a dozen English versions, each of them printed in vastly different ways, and behind each edition are stories of rivalries, mistakes, bankruptcies, and bestsellers. Far from being fixed, stable publications, Bibles were consistently undergoing change and development in the early modern period. Selling the Word of God is the story of how the most prolific text in history came to solidify its place within the canon of humanity's printed works.