The first edition of the whole New Testament in Bulgarian was issued at Smyrna, in 1840, at the expense of the British and Foreign Bible Society; but the literary labor was performed by a Bulgarian, the Rev.Neophytus P.Petroff, of Rila, with the aid of Hilarion, the Metropolitan Bishop of Ternovo.

This edition was well received, and sold rapidly.

It was faithfully, carefully, and ably prepared.
[1] See Dr.Riggs' statement in the _Missionary Herald_, for 1872, pp.

76-79.
The British and Foreign Bible Society published seven editions of this Testament, or about forty thousand copies, and authorized the preparation of a translation of the Old Testament.

Mr.Constantine Photinoff, of Smyrna, to whom this work was committed, just lived to complete the first draft of a translation of the Old Testament, and died in 1858, only a few days after having removed from Smyrna to Constantinople, in order to revise it for publication, with Dr.
Riggs.
Meanwhile a rapid change had been going on in the Bulgarian language, and it had become manifest that the work must have a thorough revision.