The Coverdale Bible, finished in printing on 4 October 1535, was the first complete Bible printed in English. Miles Coverdale (c. 1488–1569) did not work from the Hebrew and Greek; as his prologue says, he had “sondrye translacions, not onely in latyn, but also of the Douche interpreters,” chiefly the German of Luther and of the Zurich Bible and the Latin, and he drew on William Tyndale’s English for the books Tyndale had already published. He dedicated the work to Henry VIII and Queen Anne. It was the first English Bible to set the Apocrypha apart in a section of their own, and Coverdale’s Psalms, revised for the Great Bible of 1539, became the Psalter of the Book of Common Prayer.

This room gives the whole edition as the Text Creation Partnership transcribed it from the copy in Cambridge University Library: the prayer before reading, the dedication, Coverdale’s prologue and the table of books, every book of the Old Testament, the Apocrypha with Coverdale’s preface, and the New Testament in the edition’s order, with Coverdale’s chapter summaries, the marginal notes and cross-references, the errata and the colophon. The 1535 Bible has no verse numbers, so the text keeps its own paragraphs, with the marginal letters [A], [B], [C] by which its references cite a place; raised numbers point to the marginal notes printed after each chapter, and ▪ stands where TCP could not tell which point the print has. Spelling is the original throughout, and the print’s abbreviations are kept as it has them: a macron over a vowel stands for a following m or n (as in wēte and thē), and a raised letter marks a shortened word (yᵉ for the, yᵗ for that, wᵗ for with). The woodcut general title is not transcribed by TCP, and the Hebrew or other non-Latin letters that TCP did not transcribe are marked ⟨non-Latin script⟩: 130 in the margins of Lamentations, 5 in Ezekiel and 2 in the appendix to the Psalms.

The Cambridge copy is stained and torn. 1,018 illegible places in the running text have been filled from Samuel Bagster’s 1838 page-for-page reprint where its reading is certain; 649 remain marked ⟨illegible⟩ in the text, and 8,117 in the marginal notes, many of whose margins are lost; in 67 of those notes the whole paragraph cannot be read, and the mark is the longer ⟨illegible paragraph⟩. Seven passages on leaves lacking in the copy (Genesis 1:1–2:17, Judges 12–15, Job 31–34, two stretches of the Psalms, 2 Maccabees 12–14 and Revelation 8–11) are supplied from the reprint between the marks ⟦ and ⟧. Leaves from another printing of the Psalms, bound into the copy, are given in an appendix to the Psalms, which holds a further 321 places marked ⟨illegible⟩ (297 in the text, 24 in the marginal notes) that these counts leave out; none of them was filled. The Supplied Readings page lists every filled place, with how the readings were chosen and checked, and the passages supplied on the lacking leaves.

These pages are archival transcriptions of the printed text. They are not Good Works Translations.

The books, in the order of the edition

• The title page and the prayer before reading
• Coverdale’s dedication to Henry VIII
• Coverdale’s prologue to the reader
• The table of the books
• Genesis — The first boke of Moses / called Genesis
• Exodus — The seconde boke of Moses, called, Exodus.
• Leviticus — The thirde boke of Moses, called Leuiticus.
• Numbers — The fourth boke of Moses, called Numerus.
• Deuteronomy — The fyfth boke of Moses, called Deuteronomion.
• Title page of the second part
• Joshua — The boke of Iosua.
• Judges — The boke of the Iudges called, Iudicum.
• Ruth — The boke of Ruth.
• 1 Samuel — The first boke of the kynges, otherwyse called the first boke of Samuel.
• 2 Samuel — The seconde boke of the kynges, otherwyse, called the seconde boke of Samuel.
• 1 Kings — The thyrde boke of the kynges.
• 2 Kings — The fourth boke of the kynges.
• 1 Chronicles — The first boke of the Cronicles, called Paralipomenon.
• 2 Chronicles — The seconde boke of the Cronicles, called Paralipomenon.
• Ezra — The first boke of Esdras.
• Nehemiah — The seconde boke of Esdras, otherwyse called the boke of Nehemias.
• Esther — The boke of Hester.
• Job — The boke of Iob.
• Psalms — The Psalter
• Proverbs — The Prouerbes of Salomon.
• Ecclesiastes — Ecclesiastes.
• Song of Solomon — Salomons Balettes, called Cantica Canticorum.
• Errata to the third part
• Title page of the Prophets
• Isaiah — The Prophet Esay.
• Jeremiah — The Prophet Ieremy.
• Lamentations — The Lamentatacions of Ieremy.
• Baruch — The Prophet Baruch.
• Ezekiel — The Prophet Ezechiel.
• Daniel — The Prophet Daniel.
• Hosea — The Prophet Oseas
• Joel — The Prophet Ioel.
• Amos — The Prophet Amos.
• Obadiah — The Prophet Abdy.
• Jonah — The Prophet Ionas.
• Micah — The Prophet Micheas.
• Nahum — The Prophet Naum.
• Habakkuk — The Prophet Abacuc.
• Zephaniah — The Prophet Sophony.
• Haggai — The Prophet Aggeus.
• Zechariah — The Prophet Zachary.
• Malachi — The Prophet Malachy.
• The title page of the Apocrypha and the translator’s preface
• 1 Esdras — The thirde boke of Eszdras.
• 2 Esdras — The IIII boke of Eszdras.
• Tobit — The boke of Tobias.
• Judith — The boke of Iudith.
• Additions to Esther — The chapters in the boke of Hester, which are not founde in the text of the Hebrue
• Wisdom of Solomon — The boke of Wyszdome.
• Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) — Ecclesiasticus called Iesus Syrac
• The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Children — The prayer of Azarias and the songe of yᵉ thre children
• Susanna — The story of Susanna which is the XIII. chapter of Daniel after the Latyn.
• Bel and the Dragon — The story of Bel, which is the xiiij. Chapter of Daniel after the Latin.
• 1 Maccabees — The first boke of the Machabees,
• 2 Maccabees — The seconde boke Of the Machabees.
• Title page of the New Testament
• Matthew — The gospell of S. Mathew.
• Mark — The gospell of S. Marke.
• Luke — The gospell of S. Luke.
• John — The gospell of S. Ihon.
• Acts — The Actes of the Apostles, wrytten by S. Luke the Euangelist.
• Romans — The Epistle of the Apostle S. Paul to the Romaynes.
• 1 Corinthians — The first Epistle of the Apostle S. Paul, to the Corinthians.
• 2 Corinthians — The seconde Epistle of the Apostle S. Paul, to the Corinthians.
• Galatians — The Epistle of the Apostle S. Paul to the Galathians.
• Ephesians — The Epistle of the Apostle S. Paul to the Ephesians.
• Philippians — The Epistle of the Apostle S. Paul to the Philippians.
• Colossians — The Epistle of the Apostle S. Paul to the Colossians.
• 1 Thessalonians — The first Epistle of the Apostle S. Paul to the Tessalonians.
• 2 Thessalonians — The seconde Epistle of the Apostle S. Paul to the Tessalonians.
• 1 Timothy — The first Epistle of the Apostle S. Paul to Timothy.
• 2 Timothy — The seconde Epistle of the Apostle S. Paul to Timothy.
• Titus — The Epistle of of the Apostle S. Paul vnto Titus.
• Philemon — The Epistle of the Apostle S. Paul vnto Philemon.
• 1 Peter — The first Epistle of the Apostle S. Peter.
• 2 Peter — The seconde Epistle of the Apostle S. Peter.
• 1 John — The first Epistle of the Apostle and Euangelist S. Ihon.
• 2 John — The seconde Epistle of S. Ihon.
• 3 John — The thirde Epistle of S. Ihon.
• Hebrews — The Epistle of the Apostle S. Paul to the Hebrues.
• James — The Epistle of S. Iames.
• Jude — The Epistle of S. Iude.
• Revelation — The Apocalips or reuelacion of S. Ihon.
• The erratum to the New Testament and the colophon

Supporting page

• Supplied Readings — every place filled or supplied from Bagster’s 1838 reprint, with how the readings were chosen and checked

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