The Bible. The Book of Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testament. The only edition in the world containing all 262 engravings by Gustave Doré

The Bible
The Book of Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testament
The only edition in the world containing all 262 engravings by Gustave Doré
BML Volume 46
This edition presents the Old and New Testaments in the classic Synodal translation. For the first time in the world, the texts of Holy Scripture are adorned with all 262 engravings based on drawings by the talented French artist Gustave Doré (1832–1883). The master of book graphics worked diligently on them for two years, and in 1866, the Bible with the most extensive cycle of exquisite engravings was published. Doré's monumental drawings resonated in the hearts of Christians and immortalized the artist's name.

The Bible, the most important Christian book, has been translated into many languages of the world over its long history. In the 19th century, at the initiative of Emperor Alexander I, a long process of translating the Holy Scripture into Russian began; before that, Russian-speaking readers could familiarize themselves with the biblical text in the more complex Church Slavonic. Several decades later, this work was completed, and a full translation of the Bible for home reading was published with the blessing of the Holy Synod – hence it is now called the Synodal translation. Nowadays, the Synodal translation is considered classical: it is the one most often printed when publishing the Bible in Russian. In this edition, the Synodal translation of the New and Old Testaments is adorned with engravings by the remarkable master of book illustration Gustave Doré.

The French artist Gustave Doré (1832–1883) was born in Strasbourg to an engineer's family. Despite having a love for drawing since childhood, he never received formal artistic education. However, young Doré honed his skills independently and at the age of fifteen began a career as an illustrator, working with the Paris magazine of Charles Philippon, Le journal pour rire. His new comics and caricatures were published weekly, and gradually Doré became one of the youngest and highest-paid illustrators in Paris. When the young man's father died, Gustave had to provide for his family with the income from his works. Other publishers also noticed the talented young artist: Gustave began receiving offers to illustrate works of literature. Doré created illustrations for Rabelais' “Gargantua and Pantagruel,” Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Cervantes' “Don Quixote,” Perrault's fairy tales, La Fontaine's fables, and many other works by famous writers. The artist became famous: the engravings based on his drawings elicited genuine admiration from the reading public across Europe. In the 1860s, Gustave conceived the idea of creating a series of illustrations for the “book of books” – the Bible. The realization of this idea took him about two years. Doré could create several detailed images for one subject, wanting to represent a particular biblical event as expressively as possible. As a result, he produced one of the largest cycles of illustrations on the subjects of the Old and New Testaments. Doré's works were recognized as masterpieces of book graphics. This edition reproduces for the first time in the world all 262 engravings based on Doré's drawings for the texts of the Bible: 170 illustrations for the Old Testament and 92 for the New.