Did the 1611 King James Version include the Apocrypha, and why do modern printings drop it?
The desk
Yes, the original 1611 King James Version contained the Apocrypha. It was published as an 80-book Bible, containing the 39 Old Testament books, 27 New Testament books, and 14 books of the Apocrypha.
The translators placed the Apocrypha in a separate section between the Testaments. This section included 1–2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, 1–2 Maccabees, and the Greek additions to Esther and Daniel. Because the KJV was authorized for the Church of England, it followed Anglican theology: Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles (1563) stated that the church reads the Apocrypha "for example of life and instruction of manners" but does not use it to establish doctrine.
Modern printings usually drop these books because Protestantism broadly standardized on a 66-book canon. While early Reformers like Martin Luther included the Apocrypha as a separate appendix (1534), later Reformed documents like the Westminster Confession (1646) declared these books to be of no divine inspiration and thus strictly excluded them, aligning the Old Testament entirely with the Hebrew canon.
The practical turning point for the KJV occurred in 1826. The British and Foreign Bible Society, a primary distributor of Bibles worldwide, decided to stop printing and funding Bibles that contained the Apocrypha. This decision was largely driven by theological pressure from Reformed constituents and the cost-saving benefits of printing fewer pages, which rapidly accelerated the 66-book format as the modern Protestant norm.
For the theological framework behind the 1611 inclusion, you can read Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion.