Hardcover w/ boxes. (Note - this piece is in new condition, never displayed as found in an estate in the original shipping box, fresh and crisp with a tight spine, no damage.
This is a beautiful fine press edition of Satan in Goray, which was Isaac Bashevis Singer's first published novel. It also includes a new introductory essay by Singer titled "The Making of the First Book."
Noted artist Ira Moskowitz created ten original copperplate etchings and forty drawings for the text. There were 475 copies for sale of this compelling production, all signed by the author and artist and for which the artist pencil signed the ten etchings.
This is number 108 of 75 copies specially bound in half Chieftain morocco and burgundy Dutch cloth with gold tooling. It is accompanied by an extra suite of the ten etchings signed by the artist and labeled as artist's proofs.
The suite of ten etchings is housed in a clamshell box. Both the clamshell box and the book are held in a burgundy cloth slipcase.
In fine condition.
Book measures 9 x 12 inches.
Satan in Goray (Goraj) was written by Singer in a series of short installments published in the literary magazine, Globus, which he founded. It tells of the events of the catastrophic uprising of the Cossacks against the Jews in 1648.
The novel describes a Jewish life in a Polish village of Goray after the massacres of the Cossack riots during the Khmelnitsky Uprising of 1648, which was influenced by the teachings of the false messiah Sabbatai Zevi in desperate hopes for messiah and redemption. The Jewry is split into two factions: traditionalists and Sabbateans. Eventually the news had come to Goray that Sabbatai Zevi converted to Islam. This was taken in Goray that the way to redemption is to embrace the evil. The strange rites culminate in the possession of one of Sabbatai's prophetesses with dybbuk. Since the Sabbatean's movement vaned, a true believer in Torah came and exorcised the dybbuk. The last segment of the novel is stylized as a 17th century document about "the dybbuk of Goray