[Book of Mormon in Welsh] LLYFR MORMON ; Sef, Hanes Wedi ei Ysgrifenu gan Law Mormon . . . Merthyr-Tydfil: Cyhoeddwyd ac ar Werth gan J. Davis, Georgetown . . . 1852.
17½ cm. (binding 18 cm. = 7 inches tall). xii, 483, [1] pages. Collated complete. Contemporary brown tree calf. Ornamental gilt tooling around perimeters of boards. Spine gilt; black leather label on spine. Marbled edges. Spine expertly laid back down with loss of two inches at the bottom and fragments at the top (ornamentation supplied to compliment the existing original portion); repair to corners of back board.
A few light stains to the title page, but certainly a very nice, clean copy internally, and a handsome volume in all.
$2,500
The FIRST EDITION IN WELSH, and one of the first foreign language translations of the Book of Mormon. Flake 747; Jacobs 544.B.
Translated,
edited and printed (3,500 copies) by John Davis. The printing ran from September,
1851 to April, 1852. Jacobs explains that the book came out in thirty-one
16-page installments, issued to some 1,500 subscribers in Wales. These were
people who were already subscribers to the periodical, "Udgorn Seion," and
they received about two installments of the Welsh Book of Mormon per week
until the book was finished. These original customers then had bindings of
their choice placed on their own copies (like the one seen here, rather more
ornate than usual). Many of the initially-unsold installments were assembled
and issued in a standard brown full diced blindstamped sheep binding with
gilt edges and yellow endsheets.
