By 1862 the Dalziel Brothers were making preparations for an illustrated edition of the Bible, & over several years commissioned drawings from many of the finest illustrators of the period. However, for various reasons the project never reached fruition, & 72 of the 90 accumulated engravings were finally publ. w/o biblical text, in 2 sizes: a bound regular edition of 1,000 numbered copies measuring 44 x 35cm; & this massive De Luxe issue of 100 vellum-backed portfolios w/the loose-leaf sheets laid in. Because the regular issue was priced at 5 guineas, "our Bible commercially speaking, was a dead failure,... some 200 copies being all that were sold. The balance of the number printed were disposed of at prices which we will not here record" (Brothers Dalziel 1901, p.256). In any case, all evidence points to 3 separate issues:
1) a pre-publication issue w/the Dalziels's undated Camden Press imprint (examples are in the British Library, Nat'l Library of Scotland, Univ. of Cambridge, Barber Institute, & Univ. of Chicago, all being the regular format);
2) the 1st trade issue w/Routledge's 1881 imprint (20 are known, incl. 4 portfolios [see below]); &
3) the American issue w/the 1881 imprint of Scribner & Welford, New York, who sold them in "[port]folio, vellum, & calf" for US$35.00 each (16 have been traced, incl. 1 portfolio).
Copies of this De Luxe format rarely appear on the market; the most recent (nr. 22/100) was in the Dec. 2002 Estill sale at Bloomsbury Book Auctions, where it sold for £2,200 + commission. In fact, ours, the Estill copy, & only 3 others are traceable: the Univ. of Manitoba's is nr. 13/100; Gordon Ray's was inscr. by the Dalziels to E.J. Poynter; & Lawrence Univ. (Wisconsin) has the only known example of the American De Luxe issue. While Ray suggests (p.96) that the portfolios were for presentation only, at least 3 copies of the regular issue were also presented; for example, Harvard's is a "Press Copy" inscr. by the Dalziels to R.H. Hutton, Editor of the Spectator. And while some copies of the regular issue have only 60 leaves of plates, all known portfolios have the full complement of 62.
