Commune

1718 · ref. 2514 — The Hague: C. Fritsch 1718. Very good. 8vo. xliv 728 2 pp. text lightly foxed. Collation: a-b⸠cⶠA-2Y⸠2Zⶠ-2Z6 a blank as per the Emory Pitts copy. Bound in 18th-century red morocco boards elaborately gilt à la dentelle spine elaborately gilt with raised bands morocco label a.e.g. spine and extremities somewhat rubbed. Bookplate of the Washington Cathedral Library inside upper cover. Title-page trimmed at top removing the name of an early owner and backed with later paper. Preserved in a protective cloth case. AN ENIGMATIC BINDING AT ONE TIME ATTRIBUTED TO ROBERT AITKEN OF PHILADELPHIA THE MOST FAMOUS OF ALL EARLY AMERICAN BOOKBINDERS. CERTAINLY IT SHARES THE EXTREMELY DISTINCTIVE SPINE TOOL WITH THE NYPL-LENOX COPY OF AITKEN'S 1782 BIBLE WHICH WE EXAMINED PERSONALLY AND YET THE DENTELLE TOOLS ARE SIMILAR TO THOSE EMPLOYED BY RICHARD MONTAGU FOR THOMAS HOLLIS. This is the first complete German edition of the Book of Common Prayer including the Lections and Ordinals. It was probably translated into German by J.J. Caesar chaplain to King Frederick I of Prussia who had attempted to united the Lutheran and Reformed churches of Germany into a single episcopal church in communion with the Church of England. Published in 1718 our binding belongs certainly to the latter half of the 18th-century; it is therefore this book's second binding. The spine label reads "Prayer Book" and not "Gebet-Buch" and thus it was bound either in America or England and not in Germany or The Netherlands. Based on tool identification our binding may have been made in the same workshop as that which bound the Lenox-NYPL 1782 Aitken Bible. In 1902 the NYPL binding was attributed Aitken's own shop William Loring Andrews Bibliopegy in the United States p. 59 with a poor reproduction on plate XIV. Whereas the Lenox copy is by comparison relatively plain it shares with ours the unmistakable deformed bird / floral ornament in the spine compartments. The repeated tools on the covers have so far resisted identification despite extensive searching over a period of several years through innumerable reference works on early American and British bookbinding printed and online. Concerning the former there is a very serious lack of published scholarship and so we set our sights on the largest collection of unpublished notes on American bookbinding in the world namely Willman Spawn's gargantuan hopelessly disorganized archive of rubbings and files at the American Philosophical Society. We proceeded through Box 28 and yet more than 100 boxes remain to be explored. Whatever his nationality our binder was inspired by the work of Richard Montagu specifically his work for Thomas Hollis ca. 1758-1761 see Howard Nixon's Five Hundred Years of English Bookbinding nos. 68 and 69 although the tools are NOT identical to ours. According to a typed note from the American Cathedral Library where the present volume resided for at least 60 years until it was purchased by William Reese it was bound possibly for presentation to William White 1748-1836 the first Bishop of Philadelphia. On this card the identity of the binder is confidently assigned to Robert Aitken himself. Whether or not the binding originated from Aitken's shop or if indeed it is even American there can be no doubt that it was in Philadelphia at a very early date and its provenance is unbroken since that time see below. Certainly William White would have had need for a German language Book of Common Prayer to administer to his already significant German-speaking congregation. White knew well his Philadelphia neighbor Robert Aitken and as one of the Chaplains of the Congress of the United States he examined Aitken's Bible when it was in 1782. White was also the first President of the first Bible Society in the United States founded in Philadelphia in 1808. That Aitken printed and published the 1782 Bible does not automatically imply that he was the binder of the Lenox-NYPL copy or any others but the names of several of his former employees are known including James Muir who remained in Philadelphia and William Andrews who relocated to Boston. Another copy of the 1782 Aitken Bible remains unstudied namely that in the John Carter Brown Library which features a similarly decorated spine. Our binding was no doubt an expensive commission; that the tooling on it has remained so fresh is perhaps due to a paper or fabric covering that seems to have once surrounded it: inside the boards are traces of adhesive near the gutter margins at the top and bottom precisely where a covering would have been attached. Of this first edition of the German Language Book of Common Prayer there are copies at Huntington Lancaster Theological Seminary Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity United Lutheran Seminary Philadelphia and Emory. ¶ PROVENANCE: William White Bishop of Philadelphia -- old presentation inscription excised from title-page no doubt written in English in the 18th century with one remaining word clearly visible: "To" -- Suffrage Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania Samuel Bowman 1800-1861 -- by descent to his daughter Ellen Ledlie Bowman married Thomas Hubbard Vail Episcopal Bishop of Kansas -- by descent to their daughter Kellen Sitrgreaves Vail Motter 1870-1952 -- donated to the National Cathedral Library of Washington DC -- purchased by William Reese who sold it to us on behalf of a private collector -- bought back by us in 2023. For an account of Robert Aitken's bindery see Willman and Carol Spawn's "The Aitken Shop: Identification of an Eighteenth Century Bindery and its Tools" in: PBSA LVII 1963 pp. 422-437 although the title is misleading as the images are unnecessarily few in number ditto Willman Spawn's "Extra-Gilt Bindings of Robert Aitken 1787-88" in: Proceedings of the AAS pp. 415-417. The dentelle tools on the covers of our binding appear to be reproduced here for the first time. C. Fritsch unknown books