GERMAN-LANGUAGE BOOKS A-E   •   Bibles   •   F-M   •   N-Z

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Die Religion desZoroaster

•  Contains the Persian text of Daulat Shah Alai Samarkandi and the translation of the texts as edited by Justus Olshausen and Julius Mohl. An important text on the lasting influence of Zoroaster and with the life of the great poet Ferdusi (i.e., f Abu-'l Kasim Mansur). Click either image for an enlargement.

•  19th-century German boards covered with black mottled paper; abraded. Paper author/title label on spine, call number label on front cover. Ex-library with bookplate on front pastedown and call number in pencil on verso of title-page. No other markings. (19137)

Osiander’s Grund und Ursache — RADICAL Lutheranism, 1524

[Osiander, Andreas].

•  Convoluted language on the title-page is rendered clear at the beginning of the first chapter, where Andreas Osiander the elder (1498–1552), vicar of Saint Lawrence’s parish in Nüremberg at the time, explains why he and his colleagues have “put an end to the Mass.” Written early in his career, this pamphlet appears to have made Osiander’s reputation as a prominent Lutheran reformer. This is the rarer of two 1524 editions (we were able to trace only one copy in the U.S.), and it is listed by VD16 as the first. The other was printed in October of the same year by Hieronymus Höltzel, also of Nuremberg. More were printed the following year in Wittemberg, Leipzig, Augsburg, Zwickau, Erfurt, and later in Königsburg (ca. 1526) and Magdeburg (1545). This edition is printed in schwabacher with the title within a woodcut architectural border; a woodcut historiated initial is used twice.

•  Not in Adams. VD16 O1015; Soltész, Catalogus librorum sedecimo saeculo . . . in Bibliotheca Nationali Hungariae . . . , O176; Seebass, Bibliographia Oseandrica, 5.2. On Osiander, see: Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church 1014–15. Modern speckled paper wrappers. 19th-century elegant private library stamp, paper label with inked short title and remnants of another on title-page, small leather tab on the outer edge of leaf. A little tattering to title-page and top edge of F1 bumped; internally generally clean. Inked marginalia in an early hand: in German on the title- and last (blank) page and elsewhere in Latin, some letters shaved by the binder in a few places.

Father ofPediatric Medicine

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•  Johann Andreas Murray's German-language translation out of the Swedish of Rosén von Rosenstein's treatise on childhood diseases and their cures (Underrättelser om barn-sjukdomar). This is the “2. verm. und verb. Aufl.” Rosén von Rosenstein (1706–73) was a Swedish nobleman, the physician to the king of Sweden, an original member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, and a professor at the University of Uppsala; he published the first edition of this work in 1764, basing it on a series of lectures he had delivered. It is considered one of the most important works in the history of pediatrics and was quickly translated into English, German, French, and Italian.

Garrison and Morton say of the first edition in English: “Sir Frederick Still considered this work 'the most progressive which had yet been written;' it gave an impetus to research which influenced the future course of paediatrics.”

Translator Murray (1740–91) was a Swedish student of Linnaeus and later a professor of botany and medicine at Göttingen.

Provenance:  Bookplate of Adamus Elias Schmidt, dated 1784.  Early 19th-century signature of a Philadelphia doctor (erased) at top of title-page.

•  G&M 6323.   Contemporary half calf, well worn: leather dry and gone to red with joint leather lost, cords holding, paper of covers worn through to boards in some places. Text with age-toning. Not a pretty copy but complete, and solid for now. Housed in a red cloth clamshell case.  (22256)

Uncommon Hymnal . . .

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•  Apparently one of only two editions ever of this hymnal, both printed by Eichenberg in 1772. Some sources attribute the compilation to Justus Christoph Kraft. Text in gothic type, with some music.

•  Contemporary sheep with spine gilt extra and covers gilt modestly, rubbed and pulled at top of spine; ex-library with paper label and remnant of call number on spine, perforation-stamps on title- and one other leaf, several inked or stamped old numbers, and old pencilling. Paper browned as so often, with some foxing and soiling; all edges red.  (25827)

Famous “Medieval” Anti-Jewish Tract
Rare Translation

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•  Uncommon later printing in German of Epistola contra Judaeorum errores, an anti-Jewish work of the 11th century. Written originally in Arabic by the convert Samuel Abu Nasr ibn Abbas, son of Judah ibn Abbas of Fez, it was translated into Latin in the 14th century by the Spanish Dominican Alfonsus Bonihominis. In its original Arabic form, the work "claimed to prove the prophetic character of Jesus and Mohammed and argued that too many laws were added to the Torah by the Mishnah and Gemara. Buenhombre adapted the tract to present it as a Christian rather than Muslim polemic" (Jewish Encyclopedia). More recent scholarship (Marsmann, Epistel des Rabbi Samuel an Rabbi Isaak, 1971) indicates that Samuel is possibly fictitious and Alphonsus was probably, in fact, the author of the text. Uncommon edition: We locate only this deaccessioned copy in the U.S. and VD16 locates only three copies in Germany.

•  VD16 S1581. Removed from a nonce volume, in later wrappers. Dust-soiled. Library pressure-stamp and private owner's (old) inked signature on title-page. A very good copy. (21113)

BUDDHISM inHigh Asia & China

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•  Schott (1807–89) wrote extensively on Asian religions and culture. This work on Buddhism in High Asia and China is the sole book edition, although the text had first appeared in Koeniglich-Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Feb., 1844).

Uncommon.  OCLC locates only five copies in the U.S., of which one has been deaccessioned.

•  Recent boards covered with German-style brown paper specked with black; paper label on front cover. Paper a little cockled on back cover. Old shelving numbers on verso of title-page and a four-digit number inked in lower margin of leaf A1; few dog-ears and one pencilled note.  (24768)

Meant to be Entertaining — Still Is, for the Latinate!

•  Early edition, following the scarce first of 1749, of an entertaining and educational miscellany including collections of proverbs, riddles, and comic anecdotes, as well as a section on symbols and emblems. The title-page is printed in red and black, and the text in black-letter type for the German portions and roman for the Latin.

Uncommon.  Searches of OCLC, RLIN, and NUC Pre-1956 locate only three copies in U.S. libraries.

•  Goedeke, Grundriss zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung (for first ed.). 19th-century quarter morocco (refurbished) over paper-covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; edges of paper sides rubbed. Front pastedown with bookseller’s ticket from B. Westermann & Co. of New York, private collector’s 19th-century bookplate, and institutional stamp (no other markings). Small repaired hole to title-page, with four letters unobtrusively replaced. Foxed, with a few corners crumpled or dog-eared. One engraved plate from another work laid in. A pleasant, we would say “atmospheric” little volume.

Complete Manual ofSchwenckfeld's Theology

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•  First complete manual of Schwenckfeld's theology, including an elaborate account of his most characteristic doctrine: The Deification of the Humanity of Christ. Technically this is the second or third edition of the Confession, but the first edition (1542) was only part 1 of three intended parts. The two editions of 1557 contain all three parts, the sole difference between them being in the forematter — this edition has 12 leaves of front matter, the other having 24.

The 1542 and 1557 editions are rare in the U.S.: There is a false report of the 1542; the Folger library alone reports ownership of the 1557 edition with 24 preliminary leaves; and we find just two libraries that report owning the edition offered here.

•  VD16 S4933. Recent calf old style: Round spine, raised bands defined by blind-tooled rules and fillets; blind-tooled center devices in spine compartments; blind-tooled rules from the bands extending onto covers and converging and ending with trefoils. Wax stain in lower outer corner area of leaves rr3, rr4, and ss1. A very nice copy.  (25277)

How WouldExpulsion “Go” in Portugal?

•  Seabra da Silva (1732–1813) was a fidalgo and close ally of Pombal in his war on the Jesuits. The present work is a translation of his 1768 work in Portuguese of Petiçaö de recurso apresentada em audiencia publica a Sua Magestade, sobre o ultimo e critico estado desta monarchia, depois que a Sociedade chamada de Jesus, foi desnaturalisada e proscripta dos dominios des França e Hispana. Click the interior images for enlargements.

It is a study of the Society of Jesus and its expulsion from Spain and France and the consequences thereof, and it was presented to Joseph of Portugal so that he might anticipate similar consequences following his order of expulsion.

•  DeBacker-Sommervogel, XI, 1205.   Contemporary vellum over paste boards. Blackened area on spine; bookplate. A clean copy. (20462)

German Universalist Pr. bySaur

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•  Uncommon American printing of this treatise on redemption by German mystic Siegvolck (a.k.a. Georg Klein-Nicolai), originally published in 1700 and credited with having inspired Winchester's doctrine of restorationism. “Siegvolck pioneered in the exegetical studies with which Universalists attempted to show that 'eternal' punishment, as the biblical writers understood it, would someday end” (Holifield, Theology in America, 221).

This is the second U.S. edition of the original German text, following Saur's printing of the previous year; Saur had previously published an English translation, The Everlasting Gospel, in 1753. Neither the present example nor the 1768 printing are widely held institutionally outside of Pennsylvania.

•  ESTC W21009; Evans 11304; Sabin 80878; Hildeburn, Pennsylvania, 2484; Arndt & Eck, German Language Printing in the U.S., 368.   Period-style mottled calf, covers framed in blind double and triple fillets, spine with raised bands ruled in blind; entirely plain without spine labels. Title-page with repaired tear; upper outer corner and portion from middle to outer part of page lost and replaced some time ago, with loss to up to half of nine lines.  (25486)

For German-AMERICANS Wanting toLearn English

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•  Christopher Sower (a.k.a. Saur, 1721–84) is the likely compiler of this German–English grammar (cf. Evans 6777), designed to help German-speaking immigrants to North America learn English. In addition to the lessons it includes short German–English and English–German lexicons. First published in 1751, it is printed here in both fraktur and roman type, with a woodcut headpiece of the all-seeing eye above the preface. This is the fourth of four 18th-century editions.

Provenance:  Front fly-leaf with early inked inscription “Sebastian Keller jnr.” Sebastian Keller the second was the son of Catharine Hummer of White Oak, Pennsylvania; Hummer was the first woman to preach among the German Baptist Brethren of Pennsylvania, and famed for her visions of dead people being baptized in Heaven.

•  ESTC W21002; Evans 24771; Arndt & Eck, German Language Printing in the U.S., 853.   Contemporary mottled sheep, covers framed in blind double fillets; binding scuffed and rubbed, spine and front cover with insect damage. Pages browned and intermittently stained as usual with German American imprints; edges of front free endpaper, first few leaves, and back free endpaper tattered. Front fly-leaf with inscription as above.  (26180)

The Holy Roman Empire, The Antichrist, The Catholic Church, Luther

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•  Staphylus (1513–64) was born only four years before the 95 theses were nailed to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg. As a matter of record he was a protégé of Melanchthon's, as a young scholar — but in 1552 he (re?)converted to Catholicism and became a notable figure not in the Protestant Reformation but in the Catholic one. Perhaps attempting to resolve the religious conflicts in his own life, he strove in print to reunite the battling factions of contemporary German Christianity, basing his arguments for Catholic authority in a typically Protestant reverence for the Bible.

In this work Staphylus essays the relationship between the Holy Roman empire and the Catholic Church, and then turns his attention to the Antichrist and Luther. The two sections are captioned: “Des Hailigen Römischen Reichs vnd Catholischen Glaubens Grund, auff, vnd abnemen -- Dz das Luthertumb der gross Abfal, vnnd des Antichrists Vortrab sey.”

Published posthumously and edited by Daniel Prockel, the work is printed chiefly in fraktur type but with some roman and italic, with side- and shouldernotes. The title-page is in red and black.

Evidence of readership: Marginalia in German or Latin in different hands from different centuries (16th & early 18th) variously on fols. 8r, 12v, 14r, 17r, 22v, 28r, 42r, 48r, 52r–v, 73r.

•  VD16 S8604.   Full modern calf old style: Spine with raised bands, accented with gilt rule on bands and blind rules above and below the bands, rules extending on to boards forming a V and ending with trefoils and with blind chain fillet beyond. Date in gilt at base of spine. Browning, light waterstaining to some margins, the odd spot; solid.  (25859)

Blame It on the Templars

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•  First edition of this lengthy defense against accusations of crypto-Catholicism and Jesuit plotting. The author was a controversial theologian, Freemason, and conspiracy theorist who joined but then broke from a Templarist order. Here Starck, who argued in a later work that the Illuminati were responsible for the French Revolution, denies all allegations of Jesuit infiltration of masonry and anti-Protestant activities; he also winds his way through elaborate accounts of the history and rituals of the Templar Order and Freemasonry.

Uncommon: OCLC and NUC Pre-1956 find only six U.S. institutional holdings, one deaccessioned.

•  Contemporary marbled paper–covered boards, spines with gilt-stamped leather title-labels and gilt-stamped volume numbers; rubbed and spines each with a square of blacked-in leather lost (to now-absent shelving labels) and with a small date label affixed to foot. Front pastedowns each with bookplate; title-pages each with number stamped in red in upper outer portion. Mild foxing. One instance of early inked underlining.  (25023)

Silesian Historical Anthology

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•  Uncommon first edition: The first three volumes of this important collection of documents pertaining to the history of Silesia. Stenzel (1792–1854), a German historian, was for some years the archivist of the Silesian provincial archives and made excellent use of his position; this work offers a great deal of seldom-seen and valuable primary source material, including accounts of St. Hedwig, Duchess of Silesia, and Dorothea Beier, the 15th-century mystic, along with the Chronica Polonorum and Samuel Benjamin Klose's Darstellung der inneren Verhältnisse der Stadt Breslau vom Jahre 1458 bis zum Jahre 1526.

Additional volumes continued to be published for many years, under the stewardship of other editors; Stenzel was responsible for I through V.

•  Recent black-flecked paper–covered boards, spines with printed paper title and volume labels. Some upper edges in vol. I and lower corners in vol. II bumped; all edges stained red except for vol. III, which has speckled edges. Vol. III (only) with light offsetting/show-through from print; in fact a clean, nice set. (25346)

Poetic Farm Management — In Latin & German

•  Herein are the first two books of the Georgics, Virgil’s instructions on the management of a farm, composed in the tradition of Hesiod’s Works & Days. The poem is translated into German and annotated by Johann Heinrich Voss, member of the Dichterbund (Poets’ League) of Göttigen, rector of the gymnasium at Eutin (where this work was accomplished), and friend of Goethe. Voss offers the reader both the Latin text (versos) and the German, poetic translation (rectos), with line numbers, and he divides the poem into "songs," with full German-language commentary on the poetry between them. For those interested in the history of technology, a plate presents — both in words and images—the evolution of the plough from the days of Hesiod to the time of Virgil.

Though an "odd vol," this is a pleasing book, done up in a typical German style of the era. Paper marbled in browns, black, and greens is used over boards, with slivers of leather at corners; a round spine bears gilt ruling and a cream-colored label with author, title, translator, and volume number. All edges are green and the whole is exceptionally well preserved.

•  Schweiger, Handbuch der classischen Bibliographie, II: 1206. Bound as above. Vol. 3 of 4. Some little foxing but almost no scuffing.

Death to the Anabaptists!

•  Rare and highly important first printing of the concordat of the cities Zurich, Bern, and St. Gall, against Anabaptists. In early August 1527 the city of Zurich invited the cities of Bern, St. Gall, Basel, and three others to come to Zurich for a conference in hopes of adopting a single document for gaining control of “the dangerous Anabaptists.” The conference, held 12–14 August 1527, agreed upon a mandate, which was signed by Zurich, Bern, and St. Gall. Click the images for enlargements.

The concordat defines Anabaptism as a vice and the punishment ranges from fines to “drowning without mercy” depending on who the accused Anabaptist is; “foreigners” (non-natives of the jurisdictions), preachers, and backsliders are dealt with the most severely. Every citizen is bound to denounce anyone known to be or even suspected of being an Anabaptist. The concordat was a codification of Zwingli's extreme animosity towards the sect. It is considereda major document in Mennonite history.

Provenance: Ownership signature on title-page of Howard Osgood, noted late 19th- and early 20th-century collector and scholar; old circular pressure-stamp on same page of a seminary (properly released).

WorldCat locates only three copies in North America and COPAC locates only the copy at Oxford, but there is a copy at the British Library.

•  VD16 Z572; Pegg, Great Britain and Ireland, 3953; Pegg, Swiss Libraries, 5426; Kuczynski; 9; Hohenemser; 3326; Boekenoogen, p. 17; Hillerbrand, Anabapist Bibliography (1991 ed.), 116.   In later plain wrappers. One word of title underlined in blue pencil; other minor pencillings; a five-digit number in ink in the upper inner corner of the title-page. Provenance indications as above and light dust-soiling to outer leaves, otherwise clean.  (25951)

(History Now Itself History). Baumgarten-Crusius, D. K. W. Die Geschichte der Schweiz.... (In series: Allgemeine historische taschenbibliothek für Jedermann; 5 Theil). Dresden: P. G. Hilschersche, 1826. 12mo. 2 vols. in 1. I: 162 pp. II: 180 pp.
$80.00

•  Contemporary quarter sheep with marbled paper sides, red and green spine labels; some foxing.

•  Contemporary quarter sheep with marbled paper sides, red and green spine labels; some foxing; small loss of leather.

•  Adapted from Ferdinand Denis's Résumé de l'histoire du Brésil. Three volumes were planned, but only two ever appeared. A very uncommon work.

•  Borba de Moraes (2nd ed.), Bibliographia brasiliana, 601; Rodrigues 1723. Contemporary quarter sheep with marbled paper sides, red and green spine labels; some foxing.

•  Contemporary quarter sheep with marbled paper sides, red and green spine labels; some foxing.

•  Two of Schneller's important histories in one handy volume.

•  Contemporary quarter sheep with marbled paper sides, red and green spine labels; some foxing; all edges red.

Art & Antiques

•  Highly illustrated auction catalogue of a notable private collection of art, silver, antiques, sculpture, etc.

•  Blue paper over light boards, paper slightly torn.

Baroque & Rococco Minor Arts

•  First edition. Illustrated exhibition catalogue auf Deutsche.

•  Publisher's illustrated boards. Good-plus condition.

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