A RARE copy of the first complete Bible in Chinese, which had been donated to an Oxfam bookshop, has sold for more than £56,000.
The Bible was dropped off at the shop in Chelmsford by an unknown donor.
Volunteers sifting through piles of donations recognised its potential value; so instead of going on shelves in the shop, it was put up for auction with Bonhams. Their experts estimated a guide price of between £600 and £800.
The shop manager, Nick Reeves, said that staff were “absolutely speechless” when the Bible reached a final price of £56,280 in an online auction. No details about the buyer have been released by the auction house.
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Dr Lorenza Gay, a specialist in manuscripts at Bonhams, examined the Bible before its sale. Its rarity had made the item challenging to value, as no other copies had ever made it to auction, she said.
“This was the first complete translation in Chinese, and it was done in Serampore [India]. It is very scarce on the market, and not many institutions hold copies of it. We did see it before it sold, and we catalogued it. We knew it was very rare, and we hoped it would perform well at auction, but we definitely were surprised by the result — in a good way.”
The Bible, which dates from between 1815 and 1822, was translated by Joannes Lassar and Joshua Marshman. It was originally printed in five parts, starting with the Pentateuch, and had paper wrappers around the pages. The copy donated to Oxfam had been rebound, however.
It carries an inscription “Tho [mas] Dickson from his affection mother, 28th March 1836, Abbot’s Reading”.
Marshman was an English Baptist missionary, and Lassar was a Chinese-speaking Armenian who began teaching Chinese at the mission centre in Serampore. Their earliest collaboration was a translation of St Matthew’s and St Mark’s Gospels between 1810 and 1811.
Two years later, the Mission Press in Serampore became the first to succeed in using Western movable metal-printing technology, and printed the first book of the biblical canon in Chinese: St John’s Gospel. Their five-part complete Bible is believed to have been published in 1822. A rival translation was published a year later by another missionary, Robert Morison.
The Bible was among 23 books put up for auction by Oxfam, which, in total, raised £105,000. This included a 17th-century manuscript prayer book, Prayers of the Lady Pakington, which fetched £10,880, and a first edition of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, which sold for £16,640.
Ian Falkingham, Oxfam’s Donated Goods Strategy Lead, who specialises in books, said: “We are absolutely blown away by the sales at Bonhams’ auction today. We are so grateful for all our donations at Oxfam, and the many incredible, rare, and unique books we are donated.
“The money raised from these books will go towards helping tackle poverty and inequality across the globe, at a time when it is needed most.
“It just goes to show that you never know what you might find in our wonderful shops. Thank you so much to Bonhams for their auction and to everyone who has ever donated to Oxfam.”