Bruce, F. F. The English Bible: A History of Translations from the Earliest English Versions to the New English Bible, pp. 24-126. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970.

In the following excerpt from a work that was originally published in 1961, Bruce traces the history of the English Bible from William Tyndale's translation to the Authorized Version, including translations prepared for English Catholics.

The English New Testament in Print

The Printing Press

The three quarters of a century from 1450 to 1525 were momentous years in the history of Europe. Mid-century witnessed the invention of printing—an invention which seems so simple to us who are acquainted with it that it may seem surprising that no one had thought of it before, or at any rate had thought of it as a means for multiplying the output of books. Few inventions, apart from the invention of writing itself, have had such far-reaching...