The first book printed in what is today the USA has sold for more than $15 million at auction in New York, becoming the world's most expensive printed book.
A translation of Biblical psalms, The Bay Psalm Book was printed by Puritan settlers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1640.
One of only 11 surviving copies from the original 1,700, it was sold at a one-lot auction in just minutes by Sotheby's.
Bidding opened at $US6 million and closed swiftly at a hammer price of $US12.5 million, rising to $US14.165 million (around $15.5 million) once the buyer's premium was incorporated.
The book, with its browning pages and gilt edges, was displayed in a glass case behind the auctioneer to the small crowd who attended the auction.
The bidding lasted less than five minutes, and was won buy David Rubenstein, a billionaire American financier and philanthropist.
He was in Australia and his bid was conducted by telephone.
Sotheby's had valued the book at between $US15 million and $US30 million, but denied any disappointment in the sale price.
Auctioneer David Redden says the sale price "represents a new world record for any printed book".
The previous record was $US11.5 million, reached when a copy of John James Audubon's Birds of America sold at Sotheby's in December 2010.
Rare book to be loaned to libraries
Mr Redden says Mr Rubenstein plans to share the psalm book with the American public by loaning it to a number of libraries around the country and placing it on long-time loan to one of them.
He says The Bay Psalm Book is a "great rarity" and that only two of 11 surviving copies have come to sale in the past 100 years.
The settlers, who came to the US to seek religious freedom, had set about making their own preferred translation from the Hebrew original of the Old Testament book after arriving from Europe.
Mr Redden has described the price as "very strong and hefty".
"It's very important because of its story. It's the first book printed in America and the first book written in America," he said.
"With it, New England declared its independence from the Church of England."
The 11 original 1640 copies that have survived are in collections such as The Library of Congress in New York and Harvard College Library.
No copy had previously been auctioned since 1947, when a different copy fetched $US151,000, a record at the time for any book, including the Gutenberg Bible or Shakespeare's First Folio.
The book was sold by the Old South Church in Boston. The same church possesses another copy of the Bay Psalm Book.
Selby Kiffer, from Sotheby's special projects department, called it "not simply one of the great icons of book history, it is one of the greatest artefacts of American history".
Mr Rubenstein also purchased an original copy of the Magna Carta in 2007 for $US21.3 million. It is one of only 17 existing copies of the 800-year-old English manuscript.