- The first book printed in English in North America just fetched over $14 million. Known as the Bay Psalm Book (The New York Times, 26-Nov-2013), it is, right now, also the most expensive book ever sold at auction. Printed in Massachussets and published in 1640, it is an original translation of the psalms from the Hebrew, used by Puritans in church and at home. One of only 11 known copies, it has historical significance not only because it is so rare, but also because its printing demonstrates acquisition of skill that was previously unknown in the colonies.
Bay Psalm Book Sets Record at Auction
[Thomas Jefferson] was undoubtedly complicated. He mingled the loftiest visions with astute backroom politicking. He spared himself nothing and was a compulsive shopper, yet he extolled the simple yeoman farmer who was free from the lures of the marketplace. He hated obsessive money-making, the proliferating banks, and the liberal capitalistic world that emerged in the Northern states in the early nineteenth century, but no one in American did more to bring that about. Although he kept the most tidy and meticulous accounts of his daily transactions, he never added up his profits and losses. He thought public debts were the curse of a healthy state, yet his private debts kept mounting as he borrowed and borrowed again to meet his rising expenditures. He was a sophisticated man of the world who loved no place better than his remote mountaintop home in Virginia. This slaveholding aristocrat ended up becoming the most important apostle for liberty and democracy in American history.