![SAUER, Johann Christoph (often called Christopher, 1695-1798), editor and compiler. [Kurzgefasstes Kräuter-Buch,] in German. [The Compendious Herbal.] [Germantown, PA: Christopher Sauer, 1761-1777.]](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2017/NYR/2017_NYR_14376_0413_000(sauer_johann_christoph_editor_and_compiler_kurzgefasstes_krauter-buch032454).jpg?w=1)
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SAUER, Johann Christoph (often called Christopher, 1695-1798), editor and compiler. [Kurzgefasstes Kräuter-Buch,] in German. [The Compendious Herbal.] [Germantown, PA: Christopher Sauer, 1761-1777.]
A very scarce complete copy of the first herbal written and published in America, compiled by Sauer by assembling and binding the herbal appendixes of his Almanacs for 1762-1778 (Der Hoch-Deutsch-Americanische Calender). Rare: according to online databases, this is the only copy to appear at auction in at least the last fifty years; no copies of it as a separate volume recorded in OCLC/WorldCat. Christa Wells, author of one of the few scholarly studies of the herbal, located only three copies (locations not identified). Sauer intended his remedies to be used in the homes of Pennsylvania German immigrants, and based his text on previous works, most notably Swiss physician Theodor Zwinger’s Vollkommenes Kräuter-Buch, which had been distributed through German booksellers in America by Leipzig publisher Johann Friedrich Gleditschen (itself based on various earlier sources; see Pennsylvania Germans: An Interpretive Encyclopedia, ed. Simon J. Bronner & Joshua R. Brown, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2017, pp. 350-351). Sauer was also a druggist, thus his book of home remedies served further as a strategic business enterprise.
“Right at the beginning of the project, in the heading of the first installment, Sauer clearly stated that this was a serialized herbal; when it was completed, his readers could separate out the parts and bind them together as a book and therefore have a ‘small herbal for little cost.’ Several of these bound herbals have survived. The book, which started out with an initial title page, gradually assumed the name of the Kurzgefasstes Kräuter-Buch (Compendious Herbal). Kurzgefasstes can also be translated as ‘compact,’ in the same sense that Reader’s Digest is, and when set against the monumentality of the truly huge Zwinger herbal with well over a thousand entries, Sauer’s is indeed compact” (William Woys Weaver, Sauer’s Herbal Cures: America’s First Book of Botanic Healing, 1762-1778, New York: Routledge, 2001, p.7). The herbal, and almanac in which it originally appeared, was completed the year before Sauer's property was confiscated by American authorities who suspected him of being a Loyalist. He had barely finished printing the index to the herbal before being taken into custody. Some contend that he was not shut down for his political views, but because he was the main competitor to Benjamin Franklin. Fortunately, the herbal was finished before this upheaval.
Quarto (211 x 162mm). 136, [2] pages, numbered in ink by an early owner. Woodcut view of Montreal on p.8 (some dampstaining and browning, fore-edge of first leaf chipped with loss of a few terminal letters, fore-edge of last leaf crudely repaired, other creasing to fore-edges). Contemporary stitched-and-sewn plain wrappers (worn); quarter morocco slipcase. Provenance: Jacob Zoillner? (early ownership signature).
A very scarce complete copy of the first herbal written and published in America, compiled by Sauer by assembling and binding the herbal appendixes of his Almanacs for 1762-1778 (Der Hoch-Deutsch-Americanische Calender). Rare: according to online databases, this is the only copy to appear at auction in at least the last fifty years; no copies of it as a separate volume recorded in OCLC/WorldCat. Christa Wells, author of one of the few scholarly studies of the herbal, located only three copies (locations not identified). Sauer intended his remedies to be used in the homes of Pennsylvania German immigrants, and based his text on previous works, most notably Swiss physician Theodor Zwinger’s Vollkommenes Kräuter-Buch, which had been distributed through German booksellers in America by Leipzig publisher Johann Friedrich Gleditschen (itself based on various earlier sources; see Pennsylvania Germans: An Interpretive Encyclopedia, ed. Simon J. Bronner & Joshua R. Brown, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2017, pp. 350-351). Sauer was also a druggist, thus his book of home remedies served further as a strategic business enterprise.
“Right at the beginning of the project, in the heading of the first installment, Sauer clearly stated that this was a serialized herbal; when it was completed, his readers could separate out the parts and bind them together as a book and therefore have a ‘small herbal for little cost.’ Several of these bound herbals have survived. The book, which started out with an initial title page, gradually assumed the name of the Kurzgefasstes Kräuter-Buch (Compendious Herbal). Kurzgefasstes can also be translated as ‘compact,’ in the same sense that Reader’s Digest is, and when set against the monumentality of the truly huge Zwinger herbal with well over a thousand entries, Sauer’s is indeed compact” (William Woys Weaver, Sauer’s Herbal Cures: America’s First Book of Botanic Healing, 1762-1778, New York: Routledge, 2001, p.7). The herbal, and almanac in which it originally appeared, was completed the year before Sauer's property was confiscated by American authorities who suspected him of being a Loyalist. He had barely finished printing the index to the herbal before being taken into custody. Some contend that he was not shut down for his political views, but because he was the main competitor to Benjamin Franklin. Fortunately, the herbal was finished before this upheaval.
Quarto (211 x 162mm). 136, [2] pages, numbered in ink by an early owner. Woodcut view of Montreal on p.8 (some dampstaining and browning, fore-edge of first leaf chipped with loss of a few terminal letters, fore-edge of last leaf crudely repaired, other creasing to fore-edges). Contemporary stitched-and-sewn plain wrappers (worn); quarter morocco slipcase. Provenance: Jacob Zoillner? (early ownership signature).