Ein Brief so von GOTT selbsten geschrieben und zu Magde=burg niedergelassen worden ist. Dieses ist geschehen zu Magdeburg, im Jahr 1783.
N.p. N.d. (ca. 1820). Item #514
4to. 260 x 220 mm., [10 x 8 ½ inches]. Six-line title and 29-line text, enclosed within a decorative typographical border. Paper stock brown with age, edges chipped and fragile; expert tissue repairs to tears in body of the sheet and edges. No watermark discernible.
Another example of this rare category of broadside which exhorts the German speaking community to keep the Sabbath and practice virtue in life. Called a Himmelsbriefe or ‘Heaven Letters’ this broadside known as the Magdeburg Letter is one of several and the most common that appeared in the German speaking communities in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Others are called the Saint Germain Heaven-Letter, the Wenkenburg Heaven-Letter (1721), and the Iconium Heaven-Letter and each addresses a different Reform congregation and references God’s wishes concerning the conduct of the faithful.
Like the previous example, this is very difficult to date. I was unable to find a similar use of typographical border but given the roughness of the printing and the many illustrated references I have examined, it is probably printed in the 1820’s and from the triangle of Harrisburg, Reading and Allentown.
OCLC only cites a copy at University of Pennsylvania, with the same title and without imprint information as above.
Earnest, Flying Leaves and One-Sheets, pp.232-245. Yoder, Pennsylvania German Broadsides, pp. 215. Henrich Wellenreuther, Citizens in a Strange Land, p. 72.
Price: $400.00