James made his own contribution to literary posterity, too, by presiding over the production of a new “Authorized Version”—the King James Version—of the Bible, a process which took a panel of worthies seven years of devoted labor from 1604 to 1611 to complete and in which he took an informed and leading interest. It was the one literary production of the age that rivaled Shakespeare’s for lasting glory—and, not incidentally, played a more influential role in encouraging a conformity of spelling and usage throughout Britain and its infant overseas dominions.