The First English Bible Translation by an American

The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Covenant. 4 vols.
Translated by Charles Thomson.
Philadelphia: Jane Aitken, 1808. (Prothro B-104)

Jane Aitken (1764–1832), the daughter of Robert Aitken, published the first English translation of the Bible by an American in 1808. Translated by Charles Thomson (1729–1824), the Secretary of the Continental Congress, this edition was also the world’s first direct translation of the Greek Septuagint into English, and the first Bible of any kind printed by an American woman. Retiring from the Congress in 1789, Thomson had worked on his translation for twenty years at his estate in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Its success was limited, as the first reprint of the Old Testament appeared in 1904, while his New Testament was not published again until 1929.