Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller - Old and Rare Books

The Twenty-Four Books of the Holy Scriptures: Carefully Translated According to the Massoretic Text, on the Basis of the English Version. After the Best Jewish Authorities; and Supplied With Short Explanatory Notes [THE LEESER BIBLE, UNRECORDED THIRD EDITION. UNIQUE EXTRA ILLUSTRATED COPY, IN CUSTOM BINDING w/ 23 ILLUSTRATED PLATES, INCLUDING STEEL ENGRAVINGS]

Leeser, Isaac

Cincinnati: Published for the Rev. Abraham DeSola by The Bloch Publishing and Printing Company, [ca. 1880]. Third edition. Hardcover. Large quarto. vii, 1011, [4]pp. Custom period full brown pebbled leather biding, with blind-stamped ruling and tooling. Gilt lettering, including the owner's name on the front cover, as well as on the spine. Raised bands. Dentelles. All edges of book block in red and gilt. Lustrous white silk textured endpapers.

This incredibly rare and completely unrecorded third edition of the groundbreaking Leeser Bible, was produced after Bloch had taken over the publishing rights, sometime circa 1880. For this edition, like the preceding Miller's Bible and Publishing House printing of 1878 (5638), the publisher reverted to the large quarto size, format, and pagination of the original 1854 first edition. Additionally, the preface includes the original text and September 20th, 1853 date of first edition. The explanatory notes of the original edition at the bottom of each page, removed in the smaller format (starting with the 1857 second edition), are here present again as well. Retained from those subsequent smaller format editions however is the "general remarks" section, which follows the preface text. Added, likely for the first time, is a new table of contents, directly preceding the main biblical text. Includes the traditional four blank leaves for the recording of marriages, births, and deaths at rear.

When it was originally published in 1854, the Leeser Bible marked a major milestone in scripture translation, as it is the first complete English translation of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) by a Jew. Indeed, in the early 19th century, most American Jews couldn’t read the Bible in Hebrew, and an adequate complete English translation didn’t exist. Isaac Leeser’s "The Twenty-Four Books of the Holy Scriptures," attempted to fill this need. Leeser spent 17 years on this landmark translation, relying almost exclusively on Jewish scholarship. Soon after its publication, this work became the standard for American Jews not conversant in Hebrew, as well as an important contribution to Jewish American culture.

This edition was issued for pioneering Canadian Rabbi Abraham De Sola (1825-1882), who was among the most prominent proponents of Orthodox Judaism in North America during the 19th century, and close associate of Isaac Leeser. As the last pre-Bloch printing of the work produced for De Sola was known to have been issued in 1878 (5638), our undated third edition has to have been published sometime between 1878 and De Sola's death in 1882.

This unique copy of the Leeser Bible was beautifully custom bound for the owner (Mathilda Friendly), with 23 full-page illustrated plates, which includes a half-title and frontispiece*. The plates include many of the the same images which were incorporated into the Old Testament sections of similarly-illustrated Victorian-era family Bibles of the later half of the 19th century. They include finely rendered steel-plate engravings and reproductions after wood-engraved images, from a number of acclaimed artists. The result is that this book ends up becoming a interesting and unique "Jewish version" of an Illustrated Family Bible of the same sort prevalent in that era.

Like those Family Bibles, the illustrated plates here include at least 10 reproductions after images by acclaimed French artist Gustave Dore (1832-1883) from his famous series of wood engravings originally created for the "La Grande Bible de Tours" (1866). These images include "The Deluge", "The Egyptians Drowned in the Red Sea", "Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still", "David and Goliath", "Elijah Taken Up To Heaven in a Chariot of Fire", and "Esther Before the King", among others.

Also present are beautifully rendered steel plate engravings. These include a gorgeous engraving of "Moses with the Ten Commandments" (frontispiece) by Edward Schuler (1806-1882) after the original painting by Philippe de Champaigne, "Moses in the Bullrushes" (half-title at the front) after a lost painting by Paul Delaroche, "Hagar and Ishmael" (James Charles Armytage, after Joseph Clark), a gorgeous engraved image after the James Sant painting "The Infant Samuel" ("Speak Lord for thy Servant Heareth"), and "Happy Days of Job" by after a the painting by William Charles Thomas Dobson (1817-1898). Other images include work by British illustrator David Henry Friston (1820–1906) and Edouard Willmann (1820–1877), as well as engraved landscapes of Hebron, Tabor, and Petra. Many of the plates are protected with tissue guards.

In comparing our copy with another found copy of this same scarce edition, ours is extra-illustrated. It includes the steel-plate engravings not present in the other copy, except for the Moses frontispiece, found in both. Additionally, it also contains many more of the reproduced wood-engraved plates.

Binding professionally restored and re-backed, retaining the original spine. Minor rubbing to extremities. Endpapers with some light stains and smudging, particularly along the edges, with light chipping to the edge of the rear endpaper. Interior with very sporadic minor to light foxing and stains to some of the text pages throughout. Images are mostly still very vibrant and mostly clean. Binding and interior in very good condition overall. vg. Item #34197

Hebrew title: תורה נביאים וכתובים

This third edition is completely unrecorded anywhere. It is not in Singerman, with no OCLC records.

Bibliographic resources: Hills, Margaret (ed.). The English Bible in America. 1962. p. 244.

* We are aware of copies of both the 1878 Miller printing, and the scarce 1891 official fourth edition of the work with illustrated plates bound in.

Price: $12,500.00