The Holy Bible

1811

Shoults Ec 1811 B

Sarah Hodgson: Newcastle-upon-Tyne

The first English printed book to contain Arabic was Wynkyn de Worde’s printing of Robert Wakefield’s Oratio de Laudibus in 1524. The cursive nature of Arabic script and the large number of characters needed to complete the font presented a vast number of complexities. In fact, in some instances books were printed with spaces left to write the Arabic in by hand. This edition of the Bible, the work of Arabic scholars J. D. Carlyle (1759-1805) and Henry Ford, is significant not only because of the work that it entailed, but because it was completed by Sarah Hodgson, a female printer living in Newcastle upon Tyne. It was sponsored by the British and Foreign Bible Society for distribution into the Middle East.