(Bible, English). Torah Nevi'im u-Kethuvim / The Twenty-Four Books of the Holy Scriptures

AUCTION 51 | Thursday, June 23rd, 2011 at 1:00

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

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Lot 82

(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

(Bible, English). Torah Nevi'im u-Kethuvim / The Twenty-Four Books of the Holy Scriptures

Translated and with explanatory notes by Isaac Leeser. Second edition. English interpersed with occasional Hebrew. Final three pages record the birth-death cycle of the owner of this Bible: Emanuel Wertheimer (1826-89). Entries both in English and in a surprisingly accomplished Hebrew pp. 8; 1011, (4). Trace foxed. Original morocco, gilt extra; rubbed and neatly rebacked. Lg. 4to

Philadelphia: L. Johnson & Co. 1859

Est: $1,500 - $2,000

PRICE REALIZED $1,200

Observes Leeser’s biographer Lance J. Sussman, “The quarto edition of the Leeser Bible, although it probably would have made a handsome pulpit Bible, was intended to supply families with a plain version of the Word of God for home study.” The Leeser Bible remained the standard Bible of the American Jewish community well into the twentieth century. Even after the appearance of the Jewish Publication Society’s Bible in 1917, the Leeser Bible enjoyed great popularity among East European Jews to whom it was distributed at a greatly reduced cost by the Hebrew Publishing Company. See Sussman, Isaac Leeser and the Making of American Judaism (1995) p. 191-3