Lot Details
Lot 183
[GEORGIA] J.M.K. (=KRAMER, J. M.). Neueste und richtigste Nachricht von der Landschaft Georgia in dem Engellandischen Amerika ... durchaus mit Anmerkungen, die der Uebersetzer bey seinem vieljahrigen Aufenthalt in Amerika angestellet hat.
Gottingen: Johann Peter Schmidt, 1746. Later stencilled paper boards. 6 5/8 x 3 7/8 inches (17 x 10 cm); title (printed in red and black), 88 pp. Covers a bit soiled, the title possibly trimmed at the fore-margin, some slight toning to the text.
A very rare German work on Georgia, certainly intended to promote emigration, pseudonymously written by J.M.K. (who is almost certainly Johann Matthias Kramer, who served as the secretary to the Moravian leaders Nikolaus Ludwig, Count von Zinzendorf, and Pufendorf). Otto Lange, in 1935, cataloguing one of the few copies of the work we can trace that has been offered for sale, wrote that the original text from which the work was drawn is attributable to Governor Oglethorpe, or to Benjamin Martyn, and indeed a portion comes, as is explicitly stated on the title-page, from official English reports. However Kramer did emigrate to the United States at some point quite early on, and refers to his "vieljahren Aufenthalt in Amerika" on the title; he appears to have briefly served as a professor of French and German languages for the Academy of Philadelphia in 1755, and some of the text additionally hints at first-hand experience of America. Howes K264, Sabin 66848. See also Häberlein, M. (2018). The Strange Career of Johann Matthias Kramer: Transatlantic Migration, Language and the Circulation of Information in the Eighteenth Century. European Review, 26(3), 448-460. Provenance:
Sotheby's, 30 October 1969, lot 199.
C The Collection of Jay I. Kislak sold to benefit the Kislak Family Foundation
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