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Erich Lessing, Art Resource, N.Y.

ON THE COVER: In January 1604, the newly crowned King James I of England (shown in a contemporary painting from the Portrait Gallery at Castle Ambras, in Innsbruck, Austria) convened England’s leading clerics to discuss “some things amiss in ecclesiastical matters.” A new translation of the Bible was not on the royal agenda, but when the project was proposed, he agreed immediately. Seven years later, the King James Version of the Bible was born. Four hundred years later, it remains one of the most prized books in the English language. Leonard J. Greenspoon, in “How the Bible Became the Kynge’s Owne English”, reviews three books written in celebration of this anniversary.