[Hebrew] Sefer Menorat ha-ma'or

Vilna [Vilnius, Lithuania]: Rom - Bi-defus ha-almanah yehe-ahim Rom. Good. 1890. Hardcover. 2 vols. pages; Contemporary half pebbled dark brown morocco over black cloth. Considerable wear and rubbing to the corners, both backstrips now lost. Two volume edition of Isaac Aboab's Menorat ha-Maor, the great household book of medieval Jews. This two volume edition also has the commentary and Yiddish version of Moses Frankfurter [1672-1762] -- Nefesh Yehudah. The volumes were printed in Vilnius, Lithuania -- a major Jewish center at the time of publication. There are title pages in Hebrew and Russian (both detached and worn in the margins), followed by title pages entirely in Hebrew. 324; 328 pp. (After the Holocaust, Vilnius has a Jewish population of about half of one percent; books like this one certainly suffered a similar catastrophic decline in fortune). The provenance of our set is interesting. Leopold Strouse, the Baltimore philanthropist gave these volumes to Johns Hopkins University. The donor established the collection which Hopkins called the Leopold Strouse Semitic Collection; by the time of Strouse's death in 1904, there were over 2500 volumes. Johns Hopkins de-accessioned this set, the two Hopkins bookplates have been stamped "Withdrawn". It appears that Hopkins then sent these to the Library of Congress, so that the Exchange and Gift Division might seek another institutional owner. These were sold by the LC in the mid 1970's and entered the booktrade, after being stamped "Surplus-Duplicate." Bindings worn, and text on paper which is toned throughout and somewhat brittle. A scarce survivor. OCLC Number: 319760215. .