TANG, ABRAHAM BEN NAPHTALI [ABRAHAMS]. Pirkei Avoth. The Sentences and Proverbs of the Ancient Fathers...Called Abouth...Translated into English with comments by Maimonides [and the translator]

(ANGLO-JUDAICA)

(L. Alexander)

London

1772

FIRST ENGLISH TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY. Signature of translator on recto of title

Vinograd, London 68; Roth, London 29

The translator, the English scholar Abraham Tang (d. 1792) was a grandson of the Dayan of Prague, Abraham Tausig Neu-Greschel. Like his grandfather, the Author signed his name with the Hebrew initials TN”G, and is thus generally known as Tang (see p. xlii of the introduction). Tang wrote a number of other works, all unpublished, and his manuscripts were until recently in London (see A. Neubauer, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts ...Jews’ College, London [i.e.the Beth Din Library], nos. 7 and 35). See also C. Roth, Essays...I. Brodie (1967) pp. 368-72; and S.B. Leperer in JHSE Transactions Vol. 24 (1974) pp. 82-88. In addition to his Rabbinic knowledge, Tang was an enlightened scholar, well familiar with secular writings. He cites “a noble passage of my countryman, Milton” as an introduction to a comment by Maimonides (p. 24 of the introduction). Tang was also a fine scribe and artist, and produced an illuminated Hagadah presently in the Jewish Museum, London. See R. D. Barnett, Catalogue of the Jewish Museum (1974) no. 638, pp. 124-5, plate C1