Auction 68 - Jewish and Israeli History and Culture
Selections of a Father for the Use of his Children, by Isaac Gomez – The First Children's Book by an American Jew – New York, 1820
Opening: $500
Unsold
Selections of a Father for the Use of his Children, in Prose and Verse, by Isaac Gomez. New York: Southwick and Pelsue, 1820. English. First edition.
Isaac Gomez Jr. (1768-1831), a Jewish writer and merchant, was a descendant of one of the first Jewish families who immigrated to America (his grandfather's father, Lewis Moses Gomez, arrived at New York in 1703). Although in his lifetime he was considered one of the prominent figures of the Jewish community, Gomez is remembered mainly for his contribution to American children's literature – the book before us, an anthology of selections from the greatest writers: Aristotle, Plato, Shakespeare, Milton, Alexander Pope and many others. One of the enthusiastic fans of the book was second USA President John Adams, who expressed his fondness of the book in a letter from 1820: "Your Selections of a Father for the Use of his Children, are worthy to be presented by every father, to every child – and deserve a place in every family, there is not an impure or mean thought in the whole Book… to me it shall be a manual on my table – in which I can constantly find almost any of the most beautiful morsels".
This book is considered the first children's book by a Jewish-American author. See: The Way Jews Lived: Five Hundred Years of Printed Words and Images, by Constance Harris (USA, 2009), p. 273.
A printed piece of paper with an approbation by Phillip Milledoler is mounted on page 3 (a blank page).
VIII, [9]-408 pp, approx. 21.5 cm. Good condition. Minor stains and blemishes. Small tears along edges. Handwritten notation on top of the title page (English, from 1853). Torn spine (some of it missing). The binding (front and back) and one of the endpapers are detached. Strips of tape on the inside binding.
Singerman 322.
Isaac Gomez Jr. (1768-1831), a Jewish writer and merchant, was a descendant of one of the first Jewish families who immigrated to America (his grandfather's father, Lewis Moses Gomez, arrived at New York in 1703). Although in his lifetime he was considered one of the prominent figures of the Jewish community, Gomez is remembered mainly for his contribution to American children's literature – the book before us, an anthology of selections from the greatest writers: Aristotle, Plato, Shakespeare, Milton, Alexander Pope and many others. One of the enthusiastic fans of the book was second USA President John Adams, who expressed his fondness of the book in a letter from 1820: "Your Selections of a Father for the Use of his Children, are worthy to be presented by every father, to every child – and deserve a place in every family, there is not an impure or mean thought in the whole Book… to me it shall be a manual on my table – in which I can constantly find almost any of the most beautiful morsels".
This book is considered the first children's book by a Jewish-American author. See: The Way Jews Lived: Five Hundred Years of Printed Words and Images, by Constance Harris (USA, 2009), p. 273.
A printed piece of paper with an approbation by Phillip Milledoler is mounted on page 3 (a blank page).
VIII, [9]-408 pp, approx. 21.5 cm. Good condition. Minor stains and blemishes. Small tears along edges. Handwritten notation on top of the title page (English, from 1853). Torn spine (some of it missing). The binding (front and back) and one of the endpapers are detached. Strips of tape on the inside binding.
Singerman 322.
Anglo-Judaica and American Judaica
Anglo-Judaica and American Judaica