Haverhill library holds a treasure: a page from a Gutenberg Bible

By Sarah Gantz, Globe Correspondent

The Haverhill Public Library is full of books and those books are full of pages. But one page at the library stands out from all the rest -- it is a page from a rare Gutenberg Bible, printed in the mid-1400s.

World-wide, there are only 47 intact copies of the book, which was printed by Johann Gutenberg, the German inventor of movable type.

Of the 47 remaining copies, 13 are in the United States, at institutions such as the Library of Congress, the Huntington Library, the Pierpont Morgan Library, and the New York Public Library. Harvard and Yale also have copies.

Haverhill’s piece of history was purchased in 1923 from a well-known New York bookseller, said Mary Johnson-Lally, the interim library director.

Gabriel Wells sold the pages of his Bible, which was incomplete, for $150 each, said Johnson-Lally, who is unsure of the page’s current value.

Though it's one of the most unusual items owned by the library, the page is not on display. The library keeps the page safe from light and air in a portfolio that is stored in the library’s Special Collections department, which focuses on Haverhill's history.

The page could join other rare books, maps, and photographs already on display, if the library's board decides to allocate money for a special display case, said Johnson-Lally, noting that such a case would be expensive.

"Where it's kept, in the dark, is probably best for it in terms of preservation," she said. "But there's always the balance of wanting to have these treasures on display."

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