[HYMNAL; Johann Andreas CRAMER (editor).] Allgemeines Gesangbuch, auf königlichen allergnädigsten Befehl zum öffentlichen und häuslichen Gebrauche in den Gemeinen des Herzogthums Schleswig, des Herzogthums Hollstein, der Herrschaft Pinneberg, der Stadt A…

[HYMNAL; Johann Andreas CRAMER (editor).] Allgemeines Gesangbuch, auf königlichen allergnädigsten Befehl zum öffentlichen und häuslichen Gebrauche in den Gemeinen des Herzogthums Schleswig, des Herzogthums Hollstein, der Herrschaft Pinneberg, der Stadt A…[HYMNAL; Johann Andreas CRAMER (editor).] Allgemeines Gesangbuch, auf kniglichen allergndigsten Befehl zum ffentlichen und huslichen Gebrauche in den Gemeinen des Herzogthums Schleswig, des Herzogthums Hollstein, der Herrschaft Pinneberg, der Stadt Altona und der Graffschaft Ranzau gewidmet vierte Ausgabe. Altona: gedruckt bey dem Koenigl. privil. Buchdrucker J. D. A. Eckhardt. 1784. [PRAYERBOOK.] Tgliches Gebetbuch. Bestehend in Morgen und Abend

[HYMNAL; Johann Andreas CRAMER (editor).] Allgemeines Gesangbuch, auf königlichen allergnädigsten Befehl zum öffentlichen und häuslichen Gebrauche in den Gemeinen des Herzogthums Schleswig, des Herzogthums Hollstein, der Herrschaft Pinneberg, der Stadt Altona und der Graffschaft Ranzau gewidmet … vierte Ausgabe. Altona: ‘gedruckt bey dem Koenigl. privil. Buchdrucker J.D.A. Eckhardt’. 1784.

[PRAYERBOOK.] Tägliches Gebetbuch. Bestehend in Morgen- und Abend-Segen auf alle Tage der Woche. Nebst Buss-Beicht und Communion-Gebeten. Altona: ‘zu haben beym Buchbinder H[einrich] C[hristian] Gutacker, am Rathhausmarkt. [S.a. (c. 1784–86)].

[and:]

[COLLECTS, EPISTLES, and GOSPELS.] Die Collecten, Episteln und Evangelia auf alle Sonn-und-Fest-Tage durchs ganze Jahr … Altona: ‘zu haben beym Buchbinder H[einrich] C[hristian] Gutacker, am Rathhausmarkt. [S.a. (1784)].

8vo. Sumptuously bound in eighteenth-century shagreen with silver clasps, centrepieces, and bosses to both boards, all engraved to a floral design, centrepiece to upper board engraved with initials ‘JC BW’ and to rear board ‘JO St.’, dated 1796; edges gilt and gauffered to a floral design, makers’ marks ‘FAL’ and three-tower Copenhagen assay mark surmounting the letter ‘F’ to inside of clasps, floral gilt brocade endpapers; pp. [xxiv], 1200, [24 (contents)]; Gebetbuch: pp. 48; Collecten: pp. 72; woodcut cypher of Christian VII to title of Gesangbuch, woodcut Danish royal emblems to A2v and A3r, text in two columns, typographic headpieces; sometime subtly rebacked with original spine relaid, joints now splitting but holding firm; light foxing throughout, sporadic light browning; else very good.

Rare fourth edition (first 1780) of this Altona-printed hymnal issued under King Christian VII of Denmark as Duke of Schleswig and Holstein, with proceeds benefiting schoolmasters, orphans, and the poor, our copy in a magnificent Danish binding dated 1796 and bound with rare Altona-printed prayers and Gospels.

Altona, the westernmost portion of present-day Hamburg, was granted municipal rights by Frederik III, King of Denmark and Duke of Holstein, in 1664. The privilege of the present hymnal grants publication rights exclusively to the orphanages of Schleswig, Flensburg, and Thurn; the school for the poor at Meldors; and the schoolmasters’ seminary at Kiel ‘in such a way that they may procure, at common expense, the printing of two editions of [the Schleswig-Holstein], one in finer print and one in coarser print, and as often as artistically necessary, through those local printers with whom they can best collaborate’ (f. A2, trans.); a quarter of the resulting profit was to go to the schoolmasters’ seminary and the remainder to be distributed equally.

The Gesangbuch, containing over nine hundred hymns, was edited by German theologian, lyric poet, and hymnist Johann Andreas Cramer, who wrote almost two hundred and fifty of the hymns and whose ‘religious songs and his adaptation of the Schleswig-Holstein hymnal prioritized the educational aims of the people over the expression of religious feeling’ (Deutsche Biographie, trans.); written in the spirit of the Enlightenment, it also included the rewriting of several older hymns as well as some sixty contributions from Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock and Christian Christian Furchtgott Gellert, and, interestingly, multiple hymns on epidemics (see Hettrick, ‘Old Hymns for Our Time’ (2022)).

Our copy is in a beautiful contemporary binding of shagreen with silver furniture, dated 1796, the bosses bearing the three-tower assay mark of Copenhagen. The handsome silver centrepieces are respectively engraved ‘JC BW’ and ‘JO St | 1796’, likely bound as a gift for the 1797 wedding of Jochim Stehr and Catharina Sophia Breckwoldt of Blankenese, a suburban quarter of Altona. The endpapers bear (largely in a twentieth-century hand) a continuous family provenance spanning a century and a half, beginning with the ownership inscription of their daughter, Catharina Sophia Tiemann (née Stehr), passing to her daughter and thence by descent to P.J. Kröger in 1949.
Hymnal: We find no copies of this edition outside Germany and Denmark. Prayerbook: no copies traced outside Germany. Collects: Library Hub finds a single copy, at the Bodleian.

Hymnal: VD18 13372599 (calling for only 22 pp. of contents); Holzmann & Bohatta II 6166. This edition not in Bibliotheca Danica (see vol. I, col. 381). Prayerbook: VD18 14318466. Collects: VD18 10168672. See A Dictionary of Hymnology (1892), p. 267.

SKU: 2125087