page_title: George Leo Haydock
section_title: Haydock's enduring legacy
hierarchical_section_title: George Leo Haydock / Haydock's enduring legacy
caption_attribution_description: Early American Haydock Quarto Bible
context_page_description: George Leo Haydock, scion of an ancient English Catholic Recusant family, was a priest, pastor and Bible scholar. His edition of the Douay Bible with extended commentary, originally published in 1811, became the most popular English Catholic Bible of the 19th century on both sides of the Atlantic. It remains in print and is still regarded for its apologetic value.
  His eventful early years included a narrow scrape with the French Revolution and a struggle to complete his priestly studies in the years before Catholic Emancipation. He would go on to serve poor Catholic missions in rural England.
context_section_description: 2011 was the bicentennial anniversary of the Haydock Bible. Its substantial and continuing popularity is reflected in its long history of varied editions. It would remain continuously in print until at least 1910 with a long series of publishers in England and America, and would enjoy a renewal of interest at the end of the 20th century, spurring a new series of reprints and modern digital reproductions. Present day Traditional Roman Catholics who see uncertainty of purpose in the post-Conciliar Church have found inspiration in the English Catholic Recusant movement and in Father Haydock's confident expression of Faith. The following history of editions shows how the Haydock Bible with its changes over the years has made a continuing contribution to Catholic apologetics:
  1811–1814: the first edition, folio.  Despite successful sales, this expensively produced edition was a financial loss to George's brother Thomas, whose enthusiasm for publishing Catholic books far exceeded his business acumen, and to George, who personally subsidized the project. Despite George Leo's overall proficiency in financial affairs, the achievement he would be most remembered for turned out to be a financial failure.
  1822–1824: an octavo edition. Undismayed by the above experience, Thomas took on several partners to produce this smaller edition.  It states on its title page that it is revised and diligently compared with the Latin Vulgate by the Rev. Geo. Leo Haydock. However, it lacks the extended commentary and is poorly printed with many errors, including an egregious one in II Corinthians 10:4, where the word fornications appears in place of fortifications.
  1823:  In this year a new title page appeared for the folio series, styled "Second Edition."  It is not truly a new edition, as most of the folio copies were already mixtures of leaves published separately at Thomas Haydock's Manchester and Dublin presses.
  1823–25: the first American edition, folio. The Haydock Bible's popularity quickly spread across the Atlantic. Irish immigrant Eugene Cummiskey of Philadelphia published this edition that remains to this day the only folio Catholic Bible ever published in America.
  1831: the New Testament portion of the original folio edition issued with a new title page by Thomas Haydock. It is unclear whether he reissued the entire Bible at this time.
  1845–48: a quarto edition begun by MacGregor, Polson & Company of Glasgow and Charles Dolman of London, and completed by A. Fullarton and Co. of Dublin, London, and Edinburgh.  This series remained in print with a series of publishers into the 1870s.  This was the last edition published during Father Haydock's lifetime.
  1852–54: a quarto edition by American publisher Edward Dunigan and Brother of New York.  This edition includes a revised New Testament text. This revision was begun by Father James Bayley (1814–1877), who was appointed Bishop of Newark during publication, and completed by Father James McMahon (1814–1901), who was responsible for most of the work. This edition was frequently reissued by a series of publishers into the 1880s.
  ca. 1853:  a quarto edition by George Henry and Co. of London, and initially distributed in America by George Virtue of New York.  In this edition the commentary was abridged by Canon F. C. Husenbeth (1796–1872). This was the probably the most successful of the Haydock editions, remaining in print through the rest of the century.  Circa 1880, The National Publishing Company of Philadelphia imported the stereotype plates from England and mass marketed editions over the imprints of wide range of local booksellers and printing companies, and even got the recently established Montgomery Ward national mail order firm to include it in their catalogue. An extraordinarily large number of copies must have been printed, judging by how frequently surviving copies are met with in the second hand book trade. A copy of this edition was used in the Inauguration of President John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) in 1961, coincidentally the 150th anniversary of Haydock's first edition.  Another 
caption: Early American Haydock Quarto Bible
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