DER TERKISHER MESHIEH: A HISTORISH ROMANTISHE SHILDERUNG: IBER DEM LEBEN UND VIRKEN FUN SHABTAY TSVI דער טערקישער משיח: א היסטאריש ראמאנטישע שילדערונג איבער דעם לעבען אונד װירקען פון שבתי צבי
New York: M. Chinsky [Hinski], [1898]. Item #43321
First edition. Original illustrated paper wrappers, 8vo, 64 pages. 22 cm. In Yiddish. Includes title in English as, “The Turkish Messiah. An Historic Romantic Narration of the Life and Activity of Sabbatai Zewi.”
Singerman 5374, giving date as “[1898]”
Yiddish pulp fiction novel by D.M. Hermalin which addresses the life of Shabbatai Tsevi. The cover illustration is captioned: “He passionately embraced the beautiful maiden and pressed a kiss on her lips.”
“[Hermalin] wrote novels and treatises on popular philosophy (signing many of these with the initial “H”), and he made quite a number of not so high quality translations and free adaptations of European literature. From his translations, a series of book were published (almost all from the Hebrew Publishing Co.) of works by Lev Tolstoy (translated or adapted not from the original, as Hermalin knew no Russian), Émile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, Boccaccio, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Jonathan Swift, among others.
For many translated or “reworked” texts, Hermalin changed the titles, following the fashion of the time with popular literature in America, adding to them a more sensational, often as well vulgar, character—Maupassant’s “La Petite Roque” (Little Roque [Little Louise Roque]), for example, he dubbed “Di frukht fun zind” (The fruit of sin).
A few of his original novels and stories were included in Romanen album (Fiction album), comprised of eight novels and stories by Hermalin, A. Tanenboym, Shomer, and A.-D. Fridman, and many others were published separately in book form. In 1895 he reworked into Yiddish Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and MacBeth, which were then staged, and from that point he himself wrote and adapted from other writers melodramas and romans à clef for the theater—according to the spirit of the time.” (Leksikon Fun Der Nayer Yidisher Literatur)
SUBJECT(S): Shabbethai Tzevi, 1626-1676 -- Fiction. OCLC:122924819/19316600. OCLC locates only 5 copies of this rare first edition (Harvard, UCLA, AJHS, NYPL, British Library), only one in the US.
Dampstains and edgwear to cover, also to text block, which is toned and fragile. Fair Condition. Scarce (YID-48-74-X*).
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