The Reed Bible Collection today numbers about 1,300 volumes, including many important editions, and is one of the largest Bible collections held by a public or academic institution in Australasia. The beginnings of the collection, however, were surprisingly modest. Of the substantial gift donated by Reed in 1948, less than twenty items were of a biblical nature. Included was this 1608 Geneva Bible.
Cases 4-5 contain an eclectic mix of biblical works donated as part of Reed’s original gift of 1948, including this hieroglyphic Bible, a type of illustrated children’s Bible which was particularly popular during the eighteenth century
In 1956, Reed made one of his most significant acquisitions for the Reed Collection, a fifteenth century vellum manuscript containing the Wycliffe Gospels in Middle English., purchased via Maggs Brothers at Sotheby’s.
Prior to that, however, Reed settled for this Victorian-era facsimile version. It was a policy of Reed’s to purchase a facsimile version of an important edition of the Bible if an original was not available.
