Robert Barker (died 1643) was a printer to

James I of England James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 unti ...

and son of Christopher Barker, who had been printer to

Queen Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. She was the last and longest reigning monarch of the House of Tudor. Her eventful reign, and its effect on history ...

. He was most notably the printer of the

King James Bible The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by ...

, one of the most influential and important books ever printed in the

English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

. He and co-publisher Martin Lucas published the infamous " Wicked Bible", which contained a

typographical error A typographical error (often shortened to typo), also called a misprint, is a mistake (such as a spelling or transposition error) made in the typing of printed or electronic material. Historically, this referred to mistakes in manual typesettin ...

omitting the word ''not'' from the sentence ''Thou shalt not commit adultery''.

Printing career

After working in the printing business for some time, Barker began working with his father's printing company in 1589 and inherited the printing house on 29 November 1599 upon his father's death. Much of his printing work was of an official nature, including prayer books, scriptures, and law books.

King James Bible

In 1611, Robert Barker printed the first edition of the King James Bible. Although it was called "Authorized" it was not actually "authorized" by the king, who did take some interest in the work; the entire cost of the printing was undertaken by Barker who ultimately gained little financial reward but some fame for the work. The printing itself was substandard with uneven printing lines, the

blackletter Blackletter (sometimes black letter or black-letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule or Gothic type, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for ...

typeface used was considered of poor quality, and it contained many mistakes which were corrected in subsequent printings.

The Wicked Bible

The Wicked Bible, also known as "The Adulterous Bible" or "The Sinners' Bible" was published in 1631 by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, both royal printers in London, and was intended to be a word-for-word reprint of the King James Bible. However, in the

Ten Commandments The Ten Commandments (), or the Decalogue (from Latin , from Ancient Greek , ), are religious and ethical directives, structured as a covenant document, that, according to the Hebrew Bible, were given by YHWH to Moses. The text of the Ten ...

(Exodus 20:14) the word "not" in the sentence "Thou shalt not commit adultery" was omitted. About a year later, Barker and Lucas were fined £300 (roughly equivalent to 33,800 pounds today) and were deprived of their printer's licences. The fact that this edition of the Bible contained such a flagrant mistake outraged Charles I of England and George Abbot, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who said then: By order of the king, the authors were called to the

Star Chamber The court of Star Chamber () was an English court that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster, from the late to the mid-17th century (), and was composed of privy counsellors and common-law judges, to supplement the judicial activities of the ...

, where, upon the fact being proved, the whole impression was called in, and they were fined. The majority of copies of the Wicked Bible were immediately cancelled and burned, and it is rumoured that only eleven survive.

Imprisonment

In 1635, Barker was imprisoned. In spite of working on what should have been very lucrative business, Robert was not a good businessman and it may well have been this lack of experience and desperation that led him into trouble with the law, not to mention the controversy surrounding the Wicked Bible and resultant fine. Barker never profited from his history-making enterprise: he died in

debtors' prison A debtors' prison is a prison for people who are unable to pay debt. Until the mid-19th century, debtors' prisons (usually similar in form to locked workhouses) were a common way to deal with unpaid debt in Western Europe.Cory, Lucinda"A Histor ...

in 1643.

References

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