§.00 The first book known to have been printed in English-America is the Whole Book of Psalms (Bay Psalm Book, or, New England Version Of The Psalms) and was printed by Stephen Daye in Massachusetts, 1640 (20 years after the pilgrims landed at Plymouth).
§.01 The New England settlers were partial to Henry Ainsworth’s version of the psalms, the first edition of which was published in 1612, titled The Book Of Psalms: Englished Both In Prose And Metre. With Annotations, Opening Words And Sentences, By Conference With Other Scriptures. However, Ainsworth’s Psalms, unsurprisingly, were not ubiquitous in their popularity; the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay favored T. Sternhold & J. Hopkin’s Psalms (featured in the Geneva Bible of 1569), yet Sternhold & Hopkin’s version was considered unacceptable by numerous nonconformists of the time (Cotton Mather, in his Magnolia Christi Americana, 1663-1728, described the Bay Colony Puritan’s opinions of the Ainsworth’s Psalms as a “Offence” to “The Sense of the Psalmist”). Thus, there was a desire for a book of psalms which was more true to the original Hebrew.
§.02 The book may be read online and in-full here.
Sources
- (1903) The Bay Psalm Book: Being A Facsimile Reprint of the First Edition Printed by Stephen Daye. Dodd, Mead & Co.
- Cotton Mather. (1663-1728) Magnolia Christi Americana: or, The Ecclesiastical History of the New England, from its first planting in the year 1620, unto the year of Our Lord, 1698. In seven books. London. Printed for Thomas Parkhurst, at the Bible and three crowns in Cheapside.
- John Josselyn. (1865) An Account of Two Voyages to New England: Made During The Years 1638, 1663. Boston. William Veazie. MDCCCLXV.
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