Arndt lists three states for this edition, of which this appears to be C, based on the absence of a two-leaf addendum giving a short history of Bible translation—that a buyer could choose to have bound in or not.

•  Rumball-Petre, Rare Bibles, 159; Darlow & Moule 4240; O’Callaghan 22; Wright, Early Bibles of America, 24–44; Evans 5127–28; Sabin 5191; Arndt, The First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America, 47C; Hildeburn, The Issues of the Press in Pennsylvania, 1685-1784, 804. Contemporary calf over bevelled boards. Binding scratched and abraded with tears to spine leather. Hinges (inside only) open. A printed poem has been affixed to the front pastedown, over a strip of cloth. Ownership inscriptions in German (in gothic cursive) and English on endpapers. Pp. 1–2 with loss of part of margins, some text, and part of headpiece, repaired with paper. Lightly age-toned with darker brown-spotting, some waterstaining, occasional dog ears, and some holing or chipping in the margins—some of the latter repaired with paper. First two leaves, i.e., main title-page and preface supplied in facsimile; the New Testament title-page is present.

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Provenance:  Old inked inscription of John Ebersole, dated 1793, on front free endpaper; later pencilled signatures of Anna Ebersole and another person to pastedown.

•  Evans 9602; Hildeburn, Pennsylvania, 2045; Arndt & Eck, First Century of German Language Printing in the U.S., 296; ESTC W20981.   Contemporary calf with one clasp working and a remnant of the other; moderate rubbing to covers, leather on spine showing flex marks from the tight-back binding. Later spine labels. Faint library pressure-stamp on title-page; signatures as above. Age-toning and some staining; in fact the paper in cleaner condition than is often seen.  (25959)

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

The volume opens with a woodcut portrait of Martin Luther which according to Hamilton (cited in Reilly [see below]) “might have been made by Justu Fox who was working in Philadelphia at this time.”

•  Evans 11714; Hildeburn, Pennsylvania, 2561; ESTC W21005; Warrington, History and Practice of Psalmody in the United States, p. 39; Reilly, Dictionary of American Printers' Ornaments & Illustrations, 1577.   Contemporary sheep, rebacked some time ago, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-, place, “Chris. Saur,” and date labels; rubbed in the ordinary degree and with remnants of clasps. Back free endpaper lacking; pastedowns and blanks with old inked and pencilled signatures and writing practice(?) — which we do not make out much of, beyond “Johann(es).” Three leaves each with closed tear from outer margin extending into text; three index leaves with tattered outer edges, one with loss of lower outer portion; small section of pages with odd little dent to outer edge; last leaf present (and that leaf only) with a couple of pin-type wormholes; final leaf lacking. Pages age-toned, with moderate spotting and staining. Priced according to its described “issues,” not according to its considerable charm on shelf and in hand.  (25105)

Provenance:  Front fly-leaf with attractively inked inscription: “Dieses gesangbuch gehörer mit Elizabeth Bernhardin. 1780" (fraktur-like, but without color) and an additional early inked inscription beneath.

•  Evans 15242; Hildeburn 3624; Arndt & Eck 492; ESTC W20982.   Contemporary mottled calf with remnants of two original clasps, covers framed in double blind fillets, spine quite plain with raised bands and no labels; mildly rubbed overall, leather with small cracks at joints and spine, front joint expertly strengthened. Ex-library, front pastedown with bookplate and rubber-stamp; two other leaves but not the title-page with stamps; back pastedown with old pocket. Pages moderately browned and spotted, not excessively so for this type of production; a few corners dog-eared. Solid and, with its old “personalizations,” pleasing.  (27902)

Arndt and Eck cite Bender, who says “This first American Mennonite Hymnbook isnot to be confused with one of similar title printed by Saur at Germantown in 1753, called erroneously by Seidensticker and Flory a Mennonite hymnbook.” Each portion of this item has a separate title-page, with the second section's title-page reading Sammlung altre und neuer Geistreichen Gesänge. The woodcut frontispiece depicts David playing his harp.

•  Arndt & Eck 2419; Shoemaker 2239.   Contemporary calf rebacked some time ago, spine with gilt-stamped leather title and publication labels; rubbed, original clasps now lacking. Front fly-leaves with early inked and pencilled inscriptions. Final leaf (pp. 21/22 of the 22-page appendix of brief hymn texts, not of the main portion of the work) lacking. Edge nicks, chips, and tears, some extending into text; three leaves torn in half from outer margin, without loss of text; two leaves (one index) with lower outer corner torn away, with loss of a few words; last two leaves with outer edges ragged. Some upper corners bumped. Pages browned, with waterstaining to lower inner portions of about a third of the volume.  (25569)

•  O'Callaghan 161; Shoemaker 8025; German Language Printing in the United States 2535. Contemporary calf, raised bands, covers blind-framed; a few chips and old abrasions, but pleasant. Lower clasp intact, top one missing. Front hinge open, joint starting; front free endpaper torn across with loss. German fly-leaf inscription. Usual foxing/staining only, and complete.

Provenance: 20th-century booklabel of Michael Zinman on front pastedown, along with pencilled ownership inscription of Margaret Lache.

•  Not in O’Callaghan; not in Darlow & Moule; Arndt, The First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America, 2724; Shoemaker 19698. Contemporary calf with raised bands; remnants of clasps. Calf scratched with some rubbing; spine a little warped. Some dog-earing and shallow tattering; lightly to moderately age-spotted throughout; pp. 17–18, 257-60 detached. No loss or obscuring of text due to the above, but two pages in Mark, pp. 101–104, lacking.

Binding: Contemporary sheep in the Cambridge style of three concentric panels on the covers, the inner- and outermost sprinkled and the middle one left natural. Round spine with raised bands. Black leather title label.

Provenance: Ownership signature of Edward Herrick, Feb. 7, 1831, on the front pastedown.

•  Shoemaker 37811; not in O'Callaghan; German Language Printing in the U.S. 3042. Binding bumped/abraded at corners, through to pasteboards; else quite nice. Usual foxing. Firm and complete.

Binding: Contemporary treed calf with clusters of small bosses in center and at corners of covers; red leather label on spine, gilt-filletted and -rolled above and below and gilt-lettered; remnants of clasps on edges of covers. All edges saffron.

Provenance: Rubber-stamp of Lee D. Snyder on front pastedown, verso of title-leaf, and reverse of many plates.

•  Cf. O’Callaghan 181; not in Darlow & Moule. Binding as above with some scratches; joints and edges rubbed. Small holes or chips out of a few pages with loss of individual letters, not affecting sense. Small hole in printed area of plate facing p. 119. Foxed with some soiling on the sectional title-page of the New Testament and a few darker spots elsewhere. A good, solid, satisfying copy.

Provenance:  Front free endpaper with ownership inscription by Henry Binkly, dated 1833; several laid-in slips of paper include a recipe for hair dye and a concoction involving sulphur, sugar of lead, and bay rum.

•  Shoemaker 8591; First Century of German Language Printing in the U.S., 2565. Contemporary sheep framed in blind, spine with blind-ruled raised bands, abraded but solid. One clasp lacking, one present and working. Moderate foxing; one sectional title with pencilled annotations. Clearly a volume that saw both use and reasonable care. Plain, and pleasing.

Click the images for enlargements.

Provenance? We can offer no names on this one, butit was probably a woman's copy, as the rear free endpaper has the colorful round labels from thirteen spools of thread pasted in!

•  Hymnal: Shaw & Shoemaker 31426; Arndt, The First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America, 2032. Kurze Andachten: Shaw & Shoemaker 31686; Arndt, The First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America, 2034.   Contemporary sheep over wooden boards, spine with raised bands and later spine labels; brass clasps present and working, but front cover off and volume abraded, especially in top spine compartment damaged where there is significant loss of leather. Spots of browning throughout as usual in German imprints of this period, not worse and indeed better than is often the case; indeed in its way a nice copy, save for that detached cover that basically halves the price!  (26967)

•  Hymnal: Shaw & Shoemaker 43969 ( = 43951); Arndt, The First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America, 2286. Kurze Andachten: Shaw & Shoemaker 44299; Arndt 2288.   Contemporary black roan in imitation of straight-grain morocco, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; binding with minor scuffing, spine with faintly visible scuff from now-absent shelving label. Front pastedown institutionally rubber-stamped; back pastedown with Pennsylvania bookseller's small ticket. Expectable spots of browning throughout as usual in German imprints of this period. A few page corners dog-eared.  (24426)

•  Sewn; in original wrappers.

Translated from English into German by W. Reichenbach, no doubt for the German Evangelicals in central Pennsylvania, this is the work's first German-language edition. Another came out in Philadelphia in 1831, and more appeared in the 20th century.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 20358; Arndt, The First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America, 1740. Sheep with remnants of gilt on spine. Abraded and stained with two wormholes. Pages with some waterstaining and scattered age spots, not obscuring text; also some chipping in the margins, not affecting text.

•  Quarter sheep over marbled paper: chipped and rubbed; remnants of a paper title label on spine. Lightly browned with foxing/spotting as in common; dog-eared with some shallowly chipped corners resulting in no loss of text. Inked ownership inscription on recto of front free endpaper and of front fly-leaf.

Click the images for enlargements.

Provenance:  “John Wintling, his book, 1815" on front pastedown. In the State Library of Pennsylvania and given to the Crozer Theological Library; later in the library of the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School; deaccessioned.

An uncommon German-Americanum.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 32131; Arndt & Eckt 2062 (who give place of printing as Sunbury).  Publisher's sheep over paste boards, rebacked; single blind rule at edges of the boards. Library pressure-stamp on title-page; rubber-stamp on closed edges of text block. Waterstaining and age-toning without embrittlement of paper.  (27640)

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 4172; Goedeke, Grundriss zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung aus den Quellen, 572; Arndt, First Century of German Language Printing in the United States of America, 1337. Andachten: Shaw & Shoemaker 4360; Arndt 1338. Anhang: Shaw & Shoemaker 4171; Arndt 1334. Contemporary sheep, spine with later and sympathetic gilt-stamped title and author labels, binding with brass and leather clasps (intact); leather rubbed and some chipped away with joints open though holding, and spine leather showing some cracking. Front pastedown, free endpaper, and fly-leaf with early inked ownership inscriptions; back pastedown with later pencilled notation; front free endpaper separated and back free endpaper lacking. Pages age-toned and spotted (as usual in German imprints of this period); some corners dog-eared. One leaf with portion of outer margin torn away, with loss of a few words. Condition actually rather typical, for this sort of volume!

•  Arndt & Eck 762; ESTC W5504; Evans 22858 & 22493.   Contemporary mottled sheep with remnants of original clasp, rebacked quite some time ago with calf, spine with gilt-stamped leather title and publication labels; original leather edges rubbed, spine leather with cracks, spine extremities chipped, joints expertly strengthened and hinges (inside) reinforced. Pages age-toned; first and last few leaves waterstained, scattered staining elsewhere. One leaf with small hole, just barely touching one character without loss.  (27903)

This volume appears here not because it has American content, but because its contents were so important to so many German Americans.

•  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)

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)

•  Evans 23823; ESTC W21016; Arndt & Eck 805.   Contemporary mottled sheep, covers framed in blind, with remnants of original clasp, spine with later gilt-stamped leather title and publication labels; leather mildly rubbed, spine leather with small cracks, spine and joints unobtrusively repaired. Front free endpaper with pencilled ownership inscription dated 1835; afterwards, ex–theological library: Old-fashioned bookplate on front pastedown, title-page pressure-stamped, pocket on back pastedown. Pagination erratic; several pages appearing out of order. A few corners bumped or dog-eared; a good many sections moderately browned and stained as is commonly seen with these Germantown imprints.  (27905)