"Zeitung" / "Beschreibung" – a Jewish Newspaper from the Time of the French Revolution and an Essay about the ...

"Zeitung" / "Beschreibung" – a Jewish Newspaper from the Time of the French Revolution and an Essay about the Revolution – Metz, 1789-1790
Zeitung [Newspaper] / Beschreibung, [by Abraham Spire. Metz, 1789-1790]. German in Hebrew characters.
A volume gathering sixteen issues of the newspaper "Zeitung" which reviews the events of the French Revolution and an essay titled "Beschreibung" dealing with the Revolution and the events that preceded it. The newspaper and the essay were written and published simultaneously by the Jewish printer Abraham Spire, the grandson of Moise May, the first Jewish printer in Metz.
The "Zeitung" newspaper was published between November 1789 and March 1790 and reviewed the main daily events. The issues were dated according to the weekly Torah portions (Parashot HaShavu'ah). The composition "Beschreibung", which was meant to complement the "Zeitung", dealt with the period between 1780 to 1789 – the "Estates General of 1789", the "National Assembly" and the attack on the Bastille. Among other things, it describes the struggle for equal rights of the Jews of Alsace-Lorraine.
Before us are 16 of the 20 issues of the "Zeitung" (most of them one leaf long) and most of the composition "Beschreibung" (without several leaves at its beginning and end).
[19] leaves ("Zeitung"); [4] leaves; 7-108 pp. (mispagination. pp. 1-6 and 109-110 are missing). 15 cm. Good overall condition. Stains. Folds and creases in the corners of the leaves. Trimmed margins, with minor damage the text or page numbers (on the top of several of the leaves). Ink and pen scribbles on the binding. Blemishes to binding.
Rare. Only a few copies of the two complete publications are known of.