Coverdale Bible
Printing of the Coverdale Bible is completed
View full image ↗ How was this image made?
The creative brief sent to the image model. These are instructions, not a record of what actually happened.
Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗The first complete printed English Bible announces its finish in a colophon dated 4 October 1535 — but never names its printer or its city.
4 October 1535, per the colophon
The colophon records that production of Myles Coverdale's complete English Bible was finished on 4 October 1535.
The volume held the Old and New Testaments in English and was the first complete printed English Bible. Complete Wycliffite Bibles had circulated earlier in manuscript.
The imprint itself is anonymous. Older catalogues suggested Cologne or Marburg; Guido Latré's later bibliographical research argues for Martin de Keyser at Antwerp, which is now the best-supported attribution.
Not a collaboration
Coverdale compiled the text from his own work and existing translations — especially William Tyndale's New Testament and Pentateuch — along with German and Latin sources.
He and Tyndale were not jointly finishing one manuscript on 4 October. Coverdale incorporated translations Tyndale had produced earlier.
Jacobus van Meteren reportedly commissioned or financed the work.
Finished is not the same as on sale
The date marks completion as recorded by the printer's colophon — not publication, binding, or English retail availability.
Unbound sheets were subsequently taken to England, where the printer and bookseller James Nicolson had them bound and began selling copies in early 1536.
Nor was this the first complete Bible printed in England. London editions followed in 1537.
Sources
- The First English Bibles in Print (Antwerp, 1526–38)
- Penn Libraries catalogue: Biblia = the Byble (1535)
- Cambridge University Library: Great and Manifold Blessings—The Making of the King James Bible
- Establishing an English Bible in Henry VIII's England: Translation, Vernacular Theology, and William Tyndale
Researched 23 Aug 2026 4 sources not yet audited
How this was checked
Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →
What the sources leave uncertain
- The 4 October date is explicit in the colophon and is well supported.
- The original imprint is anonymous. Older catalogues suggested Cologne or Marburg, while Guido Latré's later bibliographical research argues for Martin de Keyser at Antwerp. Antwerp is therefore the best-supported modern attribution, not information printed in the book itself.
Checked against
- Establishing an English Bible in Henry VIII's England: Translation, Vernacular Theology, and William Tyndale
- The First English Bibles in Print (Antwerp, 1526–38)
- Penn Libraries catalogue: Biblia = the Byble (1535)
- Cambridge University Library: Great and Manifold Blessings—The Making of the King James Bible