(ANTISEMITICA)

AUCTION 50 | Thursday, February 24th, 2011 at 1:00

Fine Judaica: Hebrew Printed Books, Manuscripts, Graphic & Ceremonial Art Including: The Alfonso Cassuto Collection of Iberian Art

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Lot 34

(ANTISEMITICA)

JEZER BEN ACHRACH (pseud. CHRISTOPH GOTTLIEB RICHTER). Der jüdische Robinson [“The Jewish Robinson.”] FIRST EDITION. pp. (16), 204. Trankebar [i.e., Germany], 5808 [i.e., 1759]. * BOUND WITH: Noa Samson (pseud.) Das Buch Josua, Des Erretters der Sache der Königin von Ungarn, in dem Krieg der Franzosen, der Ismaeliten von Teutschland gegen die Alliirten der Königin [“The Book of Joshua, The Saviours of the Property of the Queen of Hungary, in the War of the French, the Ishmaelites of Germany against the Allies of the Queen.”] pp. (8), 1-80, 71-109, (1 blank). n.p., 1745. * AND: LÖWLE KEMMEL (pseud.) Helden-Lied über die Königin in Ungarn und ihre Gnade gegen die Juden [“Heroic Song about the Queen of Hungary and Her Mercy Toward the Jews.”] pp. 46. n.p., 1745 Opening title and first leaf detached. Browned. Needs rebinding. 8vo

Est: $600 - $900

PRICE REALIZED $600

Three anti-Semitic lampoons by Nuremberg lawyer Christoph Gottlieb Richter (1716-74), a prolific satirist who wrote under the guise of various Jewish-sounding pseudonyms. Based on Daniel Defoe original work "Robinson Crusoe," the Jewish Robinson (purportedly written by his son-in-law Jezer Ben Achrach), concerns the fictional character Robinson Ben Achrach, a Jewish merchant descended from the Lost Tribe of Naphtali and born in Rasapour on the East Coast of India. Charged with fabricating precious stones, Robinson flees India and travels to Spain, where he is appointed personal physician to the king. Passing all the while as a Christian, Robinson is married to Petrina, the daughter of a Spanish nobleman. When his infidelity - both to his wife and to the Christian faith - become known, he flees to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies. En route he becomes marooned on an island (earning him the epithet "Robinson"), where he marries a native girl, Alala. Finally, he and Alala are rescued by an English ship and brought to London, where Alala is baptized and christened "Chretienne de Lalala." Finis. For a study of the second work by "Noa Samson" (alias C.G. Richter), see I. Cerman, "Maria Theresa in the Mirror of Contemporary Mock Jewish Chronicles" in Judaica Bohemiae 38 (2002) pp.5-47. See also E. Weller, Lexicon Pseudonymorum: Wörterbuch der Pseudonymen (Regensburg, 1886), p. 295 (s.v. Kemmel, Löwle) and p. 498 (s.v. Samson, Noa)