Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller - Old and Rare Books

The Alphabet of Creation: An Ancient Legend with Drawings by Ben Shahn [SIGNED BY BEN SHAHN]

Shahn, Ben; Edmond Fleg (Ed.); Maurice Samuel (Trans.)

New York: Pantheon, 1954. Limited edition. Hardcover. 1/500. 4to. Unpaginated. Original tan cloth with gilt lettering on red leather labels on cover and spine in partial original glassine dustjacket, protected by modern mylar. Housed in a black paper-covered slipcase, protected by modern mylar. Fore- and bottom edges uncut, as issued. Illustrated title page.

The edition consists of 50 copies on Umbria handmade paper numbered 1 to 50, and 500 copies on Rives mould-paper numbered from 51 to 550. This is copy No. 520, signed by Ben Shan on limitation page. Printed at The Spiral Press on Rives mould-paper. Illustrated with reproductions of in-text drawings in brown color by Ben Shahn.

"The Alphabet of Creation is one of the legends from the Sefer Ha-Zohar, or Book of Splendor, an ancient Gnostic work written in Aramaic by a thirteenth century Spanish scholar named Moses de Leon who presented the work, not as his own, but as mystic knowledge revealed many centuries earlier to the Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai. The present interpretation has been rather freely adapted by Ben Shahn from the English translation of Maurice Samuel and other sources." (Limitation Page)

Slipcase lightly rubbed with wear along edges, mostly at foredge. Spine and back cover glassine missing, back flap glassine missing major part, front cover with medium triangle chip at top foredge. Slipcase in good, glassine in poor to fair, binding and interior in very good condition. Very good condition. Item #55196

Price: $500.00