Three of the donated books are first or early editions of works by William Shakespeare.
Dr. Stefan Litt
At the end of October 2022, the National Library of Israel received a very important donation of rare books printed over a period of over 400 years. The seven books from an anonymous donor include works from the 15th, 17th, 18th and 20th centuries. Most of the titles had not previously existed in the library's collections.
The oldest book donated is an incunabulum (early printed book) with the confounding title, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili ("Poliphilo’s Strife of Love in a Dream”), a work of fiction from the Renaissance period, apparently authored by a monk named Francesco Colonna.
The novel was published in 1499 in Venice and was received with praise, despite the complexity of the writing style and language (a mixture of Latin and the Italian of that period). The book is illustrated with dozens of magnificent woodcuts.
Three of the donated books are first or early editions of works by William Shakespeare. These include:
- A fragment from the first edition of all Shakespeare's plays, "The First Folio", published in 1623, including the first appearance of the play "Antony and Cleopatra".
- A copy of the second edition of Shakespeare's works, "The Second Folio" published in 1632.
- A small but very beautiful first edition of Shakespeare's poems from 1640.
The donation also included two large volumes from Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language from 1755, and a volume containing the plan for the dictionary enterprise from 1747. Johnson's dictionary is considered one of the most important of the period.
The most recent book is a 1926 first edition of the memoirs of Thomas Edward Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") - The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
We are delighted with this valuable donation to the National Library of Israel, which significantly enriches Library's Humanities collections.
Dr. Stefan Litt is Curator of the Humanities Collection at the National Library of Israel.
