The Elizabeth Perkins Prothro Bible Collection
at
Bridwell
Library
September 8 - December 12, 2009
The "Vinegar" Bible
The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament and the New. Oxford: John Baskett, 1717.
John Baskett (1665–1742) attained the title of “printer to the King’s most excellent majesty” in 1709, but his publishing career turned for the worse when he issued this richly-engraved folio Bible in 1717. Quick to point out the Bible’s numerous misprints, Baskett’s competitors branded it “a Baskett-ful
of Errors.” The edition’s more lasting nickname has been the “Vinegar
Bible,” because the words “Parable of the Vinegar” appear at the top of
the page containing Luke 20:9, Christ’s Parable of the Vineyard.