HaNephesh [philosophical work]

MENDELSSOHN, MOSES

Chevrath Chinuch Ne’arim

Berlin

1787

FIRST EDITION. Presentation copy, with handwritten inscription from the publisher, David Friedlaender, to "My master and friend, the distinguished physician and scholar Mordechai Halevi." Previous owner's stamp "Dr. Rippne, Glogau"

Vinograd, Berlin 352

Following the death of Moses Mendelssohn in 1796, David Friedländer became his intellectual successor and pioneer of the ideology of Haskalah, occupying a prominent position in both Jewish and non-Jewish circles in Berlin. “Among Mendelssohn's many admirers none was so deeply and unreservedly attached to him as David Friedländer, and Mendelssohn responded with equal warmth…Friedländer's memory was a store-house of anecdotes from Mendelssohn's life, and his point in telling them was to show the wisdom and nobility of the man.” A. Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn: A Biography (1973), pp. 350-51