Beschreibung:

Torah Nevi'im U'kethuvim. The Twenty-Four Books of the Holy Scriptures. Carefully Translated According to the Massoratic Text, After the Best Jewish Authorities and Supplied with Short Explanatory Notes by Isaac Leeser. Philadelphia: Published at 1227 Walnut Street, 5617 [i.e. 1856 or 1857]. Second small-format edition of the first translation of the complete Hebrew Bible into English by a Jewish scholar, 18mo; improved and corrected over the previous quarto edition; new preface signed Tebeth 29, 5616 and January 7, 1856; 1243 pages, incomplete, lacking pages 29-32; text printed in double columns throughout, bound in full black pebbled morocco, ornately tooled in gilt on boards and spine, with inner gilt dentelles, a.e.g., the front board tooled with the name of Arthur T. Hendricks [likely Arthur Tobias Hendricks (1851-1902) New York City and graduate of the class of 1923 at Columbia; although Hendricks held a medical degree, he was independently wealthy and never practiced, choosing world travel instead]; patterned end leaves; bookplate of Murray Sprung inside front board; sympathetically rebacked, 6 x 3 3/4 in. Isaac Leeser (1806-1868) was an Ashkenazi Jewish, German-born American immigrant and lay minister of religion. A noted author, translator, editor, and publisher, he is considered the founder of the Jewish press in the U.S. Leeser notes in the preface to this new edition of The Twenty-four Books that his object was to produce a smaller-format book. He states that he was urged "by several eminent men [...] to make an effort to render [the present work] more accessible to all classes than an expensive and heavy quarto could expect to be."