The first complete version of the Bible in Chinese has sold at auction for over £56,000 after being donated to an Oxfam store in Essex.
This Chinese edition was translated by John Lassar and Joshua Marshman and published in a series between 1815 and 1822, starting with the Pentateuch.
The valuable Bible was discovered among a pile of donations by volunteers at Oxfam’s Chelmsford branch. The Bible was put up for auction by Bonhams and was expected to sell for approximately £600-£800. However, after two weeks of bidding, it was ultimately purchased for an impressive £56,280.
Nick Reeves, the bookshop manager at Oxfam Chelmsford, commented on the auction, stating, “We never imagined it might go for this much. We were sat watching the bidding and just seeing it go up and up. When it finally ended, I was in complete shock. We were absolutely speechless. It’s amazing to think that a donation from our shop could help raise that much money for Oxfam. It’s just wonderful.”
In addition to this significant sale, various Oxfam stores across the country have also acquired numerous rare books and put them up for auction through Bonhams. In total, the auction of 23 books raised £105,000, with more than half of this amount coming from the sale of the Chinese Bible.
According to Sotheby’s, the most expensive text ever sold at auction is the Codex Leicester, a manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci. It was purchased by Bill Gates in 1994 for $30.8 million, which, when adjusted for inflation, would be around $63.3 million today.
