A Maskilic Miscellany. Consisting of a Hebrew essay, poetry, a play; along with tributes to Sir Moses Montefiore, all bound in one volume.

(HASKALAH).

Vilna

1827-67

Both manuscript and printed. Hebrew throughout.

The first section of the volume is an autograph manuscript by Mordechai Aaron Ginzburg (1795-1846) of his work Chamat Damesek (published in 1860), about the Damascus Blood Libel. * Following, is Harisut Troya, Micha Joseph Lebensohn’s partial translation of Virgil’s Aeneid. * After that is diverse poetry by Lebensohn (1828-52), the promising poet son of Vilna’s Adam HaKohen. * Next is a long poem by Jacob Eichenbaum (1796-1861). * Unsigned and written in an unusually beautiful hand is the play She’erith Yehuda, Solomon Judah Rapoport’s translation of Racine’s drama Esther (originally published in Bikurei Ha’Ittim in the late 1820s). * Bound at the end is an ode to Sir Moses Montefiore, Tehilla LeMoshe (Vilna 1867) by Yitzchak Isaac Kovner, with a handwritten inscription from the author to future Yiddish novelist Nahum Meir Schaikewitz (1849-1905, aka “Shomer.”).