(Johann Conrad Beissel) | A Sammelband of two of Benjamin Franklin's rarest imprints

(Johann Conrad Beissel)

Vorspiel der Neuen-Welt welches sich in der letzten Abendroethe als ein paradisischer Lichtes-Glantz unter den Kindern gottes hervor gethan. In liebes, lobes, leidens, krafft und erfahrungs Liedern abgebildet, die gedrückte, gebückte und creutz-tragende Kirche auf Erden. Philadelphia: Gedruckt bey Benjamin Francklin, in der Marck-strass, 1732 (bound with:) [Johann Conrad Beissel.] Jacobs Kampff- und Ritter-Platz allwo der nach seinem Ursprung sich sehnende Geist der im Sophiam verliebten Seele mit Gott um den neuen Namen gerungen, und den Sieg davon getragen. Entworffen in unterschidlichen Glaubens- u. Leidens-Liedern u. erfahrungs vollen Austruckungen des Gemuths … Verleget von einem Liebhaber der Wahrheit die im Verborgenen wohnt. Philadelphia: Gedruckt bey B.F., 1736

Together 2 works in one volume, pot 8vo (151 x 90 mm, second work slightly shorter). Both texts in double columns with vertical rule, a little bit of Gothic type, occasional typographic headpieces and ornaments; a very little scattered soiling, chiefly marginal. Contemporary Ephrata sheep, covers with double blind-fillet frame, cordiform hinges and clasp catching on the front cover, plain endpapers, edges stained brown; worn and a bit restored, with losses to corners and head of spine.

A pair of Benjamin Franklin's rarest imprints and among the earliest German-language books printed in the British Colonies, preserved in a contemporary Ephrata binding. 

Vorspiel der Neuen-Welt was the second of three hymnals Franklin printed for the Ephrata community, and it contains all but three of the sixty-five hymns from the 1730 Göttliche Liebes un Lobes gethöne (Miller 15; citing one complete and one fragmentary copy) and adds fifty-five new texts by Beissel, Michael Wellfare, Martin Bremer, and others. Jacobs Kampff- und Ritter-Platz was essentially a supplement to Vorspiel, containing thirty-two new hymns, mostly by Beissel, including one—“Wer Ohren hat der hœre was der Geist der Gemein[d]e[n] saget” (Whoever has ears, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches)—that runs to forty-three stanzas. Samuel Eckerling commissioned the Vorspiel, containing hymns of "love, praise, suffering, strength, and experience," for which Franklin received £20; the supplemental Jacobs Kampff- und Ritter-Platz—“Published by a lover of truth, who dwells in secret”—was commissioned by Beissel himself.

Conrad Beissel was born in Eberbach, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, in 1692. Orphaned at a young age, he initially made his livelihood as a baker and fiddler, but after joining the Lutheran Pietism movement, he abandoned his former life—but not his inclination towards music. In 1720, Beissel emigrated to Germantown, Pennsylvania, where he joined a band of Pietistic hermits known as the Society of the Woman of the Wilderness. That venture soon collapsed and he moved on to the German Baptists (Dunkards) but found their spiritual life wanting, so he set out further west for a life of solitary prayer and meditation.

A decade after his arrival in Pennsylvania, Beissel had attracted his own followers, probably because of the charismatic personality that had made him a popular performer in the Palatinate. In 1732, he founded the Ephrata Cloister on the Cocalico Creek in the Conestoga region, and he led this celibate, ascetic, Sabbatarian community as spiritual leader and music director until his death in 1768.

Christoph Sauer succeeded Franklin as printer to the German-speaking Ephrata community, but it soon established its own press, part of a vibrant economy that also included agriculture, milling, papermaking, and manufacture of textiles. Ephrata became so financially successful that in 1745 Beissel, fearing the community was losing its focus on spirituality, exiled brothers Samuel and Israel Eckerling, the community’s principal proponents of prosperity, and returned the community to a subsistence economy. Beissel maintained the press, but not as a commercial undertaking: the Brotherhood accepted a commission from the Skippack Mennonites to translate (from the original Dutch) and print a German edition of the Martyrs’ Mirror without requiring them to subscribe for a set number of copies. Running to 1,512 pages of letterpress, Der blutige Schau-Platz oder Martyrer-Spiegel der Tauffs gesin̄ten oder wehrlosen-Christen, die um des Zeugnuss Jesu ihres Seligmachers Willen gelitten haben, und seynd getödtet worden, von Christi Zeit an bis auf das Jahr 1660 was the largest book printed in eighteenth-century North America and was on the press from 1748 to 1749 (ESTC W19947; Evans 6256).

Beissel “is said to have written more than 4,000 lines of poetry, almost all of it religious, some of it set to music that he composed. For the community's worship, he developed distinctive types of choral harmony and antiphonal singing, and he frequently required the members to sing in this style on late night walks around Ephrata. … Beissel’s German-language poetry has not received the attention it deserves” (Frantz). His musical notation was not printed but copied in multiple manuscripts that were used in conjunction with the hymnal texts. “For Beissel, music is imbued with a specific purpose, that of worship. He posits that one of the functions of a faithful community is to attempt to match ‘the manner of the angelic choirs’ with ‘songs of love and praise.’ Indeed, although Beissel states that singing is the method by which ‘to praise God outwardly in the purest way,’ he notes a significant challenge to this system of worship: ‘the continued weight of our roughness in the not yet fully crucified nature’” (Herbert, pp. 104–105).

Although Franklin’s Autobiography states that he began to study foreign languages in 1733, Leo Lemay writes that he actually started several years earlier. “The account in the Autobiography describes his learning to read the modern romance languages French, Italian, and Spanish before Latin, which was then easy to learn. Franklin omits German. It would not help in learning Latin, and listing it in addition to several Romance languages might have made his accomplishments seem quite extraordinary, and Franklin consistently understated his achievements. He learned German because so many Pennsylvanians were German (locally called ‘Pennsylvania Dutch’) and the language would be useful to him in his personal and business life. He published two books [both by Beissel] in German in 1730. He probably knew German by then and set Conrad Beissel's books in type. Before 1732 [when Vorspiel der Neuen-Welt was printed], he read German fluently (Life, 2:17).

Miller found four other examples (all in Pennsylvania) that, like the present set, contained these two Beissel hymnals bound together: at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Franklin & Marshall, the Library Company of Philadelphia, and Penn State.

This is evidently the only copy of Vorspiel der Neuen-Welt to appear at auction for more than a century (the Pennypacker copy was sold at the Anderson Galleries, 29 October 1923, lot 125), while it is nearly a century and a quarter since a copy of Jacobs Kampff- und Ritter-Platz is noted in the auction records (again the Pennypacker copy, this sold by Henkels in 1905). There is no record of another Sammelband of the two hymnals ever appearing at auction.

REFERENCES

Miller 48, 118; ESTC W30969, W1238; Evans 3503, 3986; Hildeburn 452, 536; Campbell 46, 98; cf. John B. Frantz, "Johann Conrad Beissel," in American National Biography; cf. Christopher Dylan Herbert, Voices in the Pennsylvania Wilderness: An Examination of the Music Manuscripts, Music Theory, Compositions, and (Female) Composers of the Eighteenth-Century Ephrata Cloister. Dissertation for the Doctor of Musical Arts degree, The Juilliard School, 2018

PROVENANCE

Sotheby's New York, 21 July 2022, lot 1054 (undesignated consignor, descended through a Lancaster-area family)