Elvis Presley's personal Bible has sold at auction for $120,000.
The Bible was one of three found on the singer's bedside table the night he died in 1977 at his home Graceland. He was 42.
Elvis' faith was very important to him and he often turned to the Bible for comfort and inspiration. He was known to say a prayer before every performance and his Bible is considered to be a significant piece of musical history. It contains underlined passages and bookmarked pages, including one from the book of Job, 31:24-28:
"If I have put my trust in gold or said to pure gold, 'You are my security,' if I have rejoiced over my great wealth, the fortune my hands had gained, if I have regarded the sun in its radiance or the moon moving in splendour, so that my heart was secretly enticed and my hand offered them a kiss of homage, then these also would be sins to be judged, for I would have been unfaithful to God on high."
The Bible which is embossed in gold with the singer's name, was discovered by Elvis's cousin, Patsy Presley and his father, Vernon as they sorted through his personal belongings. A letter written by Patsy accompanies the Bible : "Shortly after Elvis' passing, my uncle Vernon (Elvis' dad) and I went up into Elvis' bedroom at Graceland to organise and pack many of his personal belongings. This Holy Bible was one of three that Elvis had on his night table. After packing them, Uncle Vernon had me take them home for safekeeping and eventually gave them to me."
As a child Elvis' parents took him to church where he sang Gospel and in a 1977 interview he said:
"I’ve always liked music. My mother and dad both loved to sing. And they did tell me that when I was about three or four years old I got away from them in church and walked in front of the choir and started beating time...When I got old enough, I started to sing in church. That is one of the ways I got into singing... It’s just part of you. You don’t even think about it.
“And when we get through work, what we have to do, we usually end up doing gospel,” he added. “Because we wanna do it. We do two shows a lot of times and afterward we will go upstairs and sing gospel songs, until daylight.”
His stepbrother, Billy Stanley told Faithwire: "He was a Christian, and most people don't know that...When I say 'Christian,' he was a Bible-carrying Christian…wherever he went, he took the Bible with him."
Stanley told Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that when fans described him as 'the King' he would say: "No, no, I'm sorry. There's only one true king, and that's Jesus."
The Bible received 23 bids before being bought by an anonymous bidder at Kruse GWS Auctions.