(Samuel Sewall). An Hebrew Grammar.

AUCTION 75 | Thursday, March 08th, 2018 at 1:00 PM
Auction of Fine Judaica: Printed Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters, Antiquities, Ceremonial Objects & Graphic Art

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Lot 96
(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

(Samuel Sewall). An Hebrew Grammar.

<<FIRST EDITION.>> pp. vi, 83. Blanks removed, previous owners’ inscriptions, foxed. Contemporary calf-backed marbled boards, rubbed. 8vo.

Boston:

Est: $1,000 - $1,500
<<One of just two Hebrew grammars printed in the Americas prior to the nineteenth century.>> Stephen Sewall (1734-1804) was professor of Hebrew at Harvard and one of the leading Oriental scholars of his day. He succeeded Judah Monis as instructor in Hebrew at Harvard in 1761, a position Sewall held for more than twenty years. - This is the second Hebrew grammar produced in America, preceded only by Monis’s Hebrew grammar published in 1735. For more on Hebrew studies in Colonial America, see S. Goldman (ed.), Hebrew and the Bible in America (1993), especially T. Siegal’s contribution: “Professor Stephen Sewall and the Transformation of Hebrew at Harvard.”