The first book printed with type, according to Pettigrew, was the Latin
Bible printed by John Gutenberg, at Mayence, about 1455; but Haydn is
inclined to assign a somewhat later date to this, making the Book of
Psalms, by Faust and Scheffer, printed on August 14, 1457, the first book.
The Gutenberg book is called the Mazarin Bible, having first been found in
the library of Cardinal Mazarin.
There are only twenty copies of this first edition known to exist, and the
workmanship in type, ink, and paper far exceed any of the subsequent
editions for two hundred years.
Christopher Sower (or Saur) made the first punches and matrices and cast
the first type in America at Germantown, Pennsylvania, about 1735. The
anvil on which he hammered them out is still preserved. They were for a
German Bible which Sower published.
"The price of our newly finished Bible, in plain binding, with a clasp,
will be eighteen shillings," he said, "but to the poor and needy we have
no price."