Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller - Old and Rare Books

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

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

New York: Pantheon, 1954. Limited edition. Hardcover. Quarto. Unpaginated. Original tan cloth with gilt lettering on red leather labels on cover and spine, housed in glossy black paper-covered slipcase. Fore- and bottom edges uncut, as issued. Illustrated title page.

The edition consists of 50 copies on Umbria handmade paper numbered from 1 to 50, and 500 copies on Rives mould-paper numbered from 51 to 550. This is copy is a Review Copy, signed by Ben Shan on limitation page. Printed at The Spiral Press on Rives mould-paper. Illustrated with brown reproductions of drawings in text 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 rubbed with wear along edges, some scuffing at corners and foredge, and top pane missing for the most part. Slipcase in good, binding and interior in very good condition. Very good condition. Item #55200

Price: $350.00