A rare example of the first appearance of Calvin’s ‘Institutes’ in the English tongue, 1561

CALVIN, john. The Institution of Christian Religion  London: Reynold Wolfe & Richard Harrison, 1561

First edition in English. The first English translation of Calvi n’s Institutio Christianae Religionis (based on the definitive 1559 Latin edition). Rendered by Thomas Norton, lawyer, parliamentarian, and polemicist, this vigorous Elizabethan prose version introduced Calvin’s systematic theology to English readers at a decisive moment in the early years of Elizabeth I’s reign. Printed jointly by Reynold Wolfe, the Queen’s printer, and Richard Harrison, the edition was officially “seen and allowed” under the royal Injunctions. A landmark in the transmission of Reformed theology into England, this 1561 folio stands alongside the Geneva Bible (1560) and Foxe’s Actes and Monuments (1563) as one of the great monuments of Elizabethan Protestant printing.

Folio (280 x 190 mm)

Description

Collates [8], 70, 269, [1], 171, [3] leaves. Black-letter type. Woodcut title ornament and initials. Title relaid on later paper with loss to one corner affecting three letters of the title. Occasional mild watermarking.

Text otherwise clean, with generous margins.

Binding
In original boards with a later sympathetic reback. A sound, unsophisticated copy of a work rarely encountered in commerce.

References
STC 4415; ESTC S107156; EEBO A17662