This three volume e-text set comes from multiple editions of Challoner's
revised Douay-Rheims Version of the Holy Bible. The division of the Old
Testaments into two parts follows the two tome format of the 1609/1610
printing of the Old Testament. In 1568 English exiles, many from
Oxford, established the English College of Douay (Douai/Doway), Flanders,
under William (later Cardinal) Allen. In October, 1578, Gregory Martin
began the work of preparing an English translation of the Bible for
Catholic readers, the first such translation into Modern English.
Assisting were William Allen, Richard Bristow, Thomas Worthington, and
William Reynolds who revised, criticized, and corrected Dr. Martin's
work. The college published the New Testament at Rheims (Reims/Rhemes),
France, in 1582 through John Fogny with a preface and explanatory notes,
authored chiefly by Bristol, Allen, and Worthington. Later the Old
Testament was published at Douay in two parts (1609 and 1610) by Laurence
Kellam through the efforts of Dr. Worthington, then superior of the
seminary. The translation had been prepared before the appearance of the
New Testament, but the publication was delayed due to financial
difficulties. The religious and scholarly adherence to the Latin Vulgate
text led to the less elegant and idiomatic words and phrases often found
in the translation. In some instances where no English word conveyed the
full meaning of the Latin, a Latin word was Anglicized and its meaning
defined in a glossary. Although ridiculed by critics, many of these
words later found common usage in the English language. Spellings of
proper names and the numbering of the Psalms are adopted from the Latin
Vulgate.
In 1749 Dr. Richard Challoner began a major revision of the Douay and
Rheims texts, the spellings and phrasing of which had become increasingly
archaic in the almost two centuries since the translations were first
produced. He modernized the diction and introduced a more fluid style,
while faithfully maintaining the accuracy of Dr. Martin's texts. This
revision became the 'de facto' standard text for English speaking
Catholics until the twentieth century. It is still highly regarded by
many for its style, although it is now rarely used for liturgical
purposes. The notes included in this electronic edition are generally
attributed to Bishop Challoner.
The 1610 printing of the second tome of the Old Testament includes an
appendix containing the non-canonical books 'Prayer of Manasses,' 'Third
Booke of Esdras,' and 'Fourth Booke of Esdras.' While not part of
Challoner's revision, the 1610 texts are placed in the appendices of
Vol. II of this e-text set. Also included are the original texts of two
short books, 'The Prophecie of Abdias' (Vol. II) and 'The Catholike
Epistle of Iude the Apostle' (Vol. III), to give the reader a sense of
the language of the first editions in comparison to the Challoner
revision. Further background on the Douay-Rheims version may be found in
a selection from the preface to the 1582 edition and the original
glossary included in the appendices of Vol. III.