A Luncheon for the Right Reverend Monsignor Ronald A. Knox; Given by the Chairman and Directors of Burns & Oates to mark the publication of the Definitive Edition of his translation of The Bible
London: Burns & Oates, 1955. Folio (12 inches tall), original single bifolium of cream hammer-finished wove paper, printed in red and black on all four pages. Light toning and soiling, but overall an excellent copy. Item #1840
THE HIGH-WATER MARK OF THE ENGLISH CATHOLIC LITERARY REVIVAL
Guest List and Menu for a Celebration of Monsignor Ronald Knox's Definitive Edition of the Vulgate in November 1955. Held at London's Hyde Park Hotel under the Presidency of His Eminence Cardinal Bernard Griffin and Tom Burns, Chairman of Burns and Oates (the venerable Catholic publishing house), the luncheon was arguably the high-water mark of the Catholic Literary Revival in England. Decorated with a wood-engraved red headpiece depicting the Holy Spirit as a Dove with Nimbus and a similar red tailpiece showing the arms of Thomas Becket - three choughs ("beckits") on an escutcheon with a banderole, inscribed "Nos Necesse Thoma Tueri" ("We Must Protect Thomas"). A large piece of scarce ephemera; we have been unable to trace another copy.
First published during the Second World War, Knox's new translation of the Latin Vulgate, authorized by the Archbishops of England and Wales, was intended to replace the older Bishop Challoner translation. While Ronald Knox's literary output "was immense and apparently effortless, he had none...of the vanity of a man who had carried off all the prizes at Oxford as an undergraduate, nothing of the donnish characteristics of those who spent the greater part of their lives in the secluded, all-male, rarefied atmosphere of the university at that period" (Tom Burns).
Over the next decade, the Knox translation was printed in successive editions by Burns and Oates. "One job to which I gave special care was the Definitive Edition of the Knox Bible on Oxford India paper. From the point of view of production I think it still holds its own among modern bibles. I had the help of Stanley Morison for the typography, and the printer of the Cambridge University Press, Brooke Crutchley. The Cambridge University Press composed the type and Oxford University Press printed it by offset—which gave it a very special parentage" (Tom Burns).
"Publication was celebrated by a large luncheon at the Hyde Park Hotel with Cardinal Griffin in the chair. Ronnie Knox was showing signs of his malignant illness but kept up a front of wry humour" (Tom Burns). The guest list—a Who's Who of English Catholic Letters—included Evelyn Waugh (later Knox's biographer), Stanley Morison, Sir Kenneth Clark, E.V. Knox (Ronald's brother), the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Pakenham, James Pope-Hennessy, Christopher Sykes, and many other Catholics and Anglican notables. It appears that there were no female guests at the luncheon.
"The lunch was something of a Belshazzar's feast for me. I saw the writing on the wall for the publishing branch" of Burns and Oates (BOW Holdings) and the firm was soon sold to Herder's. Ronald Knox died in 1957 and the Knox Bible soon faded from prominence. "Sadly, even Knox's translation of the Bible, painstakingly crafted into what he hoped was a 'timeless English,' was very soon eclipsed by later translations that were more accomplished academically" (Joseph Pearce). Tom Burns. The Use of Memory: Publishing and Other Pursuits; Joseph Pearce. Catholic Literary Giants: A Field Guide to the Catholic Literary Landscape.
Price: $500.00