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THE HOLY BIBLE
With illustrations by Gustave Dore'. Large folio edition. Total of 238
illustrations. Cassell, Petter and Galpin. Published in London in sixty-four
parts (four shillings each) and in New York, in thirty parts (two dollars each,
with about 8 plates and about 70 pages of biblical text in each part. Weekly or
monthly.)
This was the presentation of the Dore' Bible in 1866.
The Dore' illustrations obtained an astonishing, long lasting success in the
U.S.
An exposition at The Art Institute of Chicago of THE DORE BIBLE COLLECTION in
1896 was visited by over 1.5 million people in nine months. Nearly trebling the annual average number of visitors of the
U.S. museums.
Dore's Bible was published in various styles, all, by Cassell's standards,
decidedly costly. In parts, it was four shillings per paper-covered number, and
the total of sixty-four parts could then be bound in two "handsome cloth cases"
at nine shillings each. It was also available complete, at prices from eight to
fifteen pounds. It was intended as a family possession, a treasure, sumptuous,
magnificent. The new Cassell's publication was the work of one artist, a
Frenchman of genius. For the bourgeois nineteenth century, to possess Dore's
Bible was like owning a great cycle of masterpieces, like having a copy of
Giotto's Arena Chapel in the family.