DIE GESCHICHTE JOSEPH'S UND SEINER BRUDER. EINE BIBLISCHE ERZAHLUNG. MIT VIELEN BUNTEN BILDERN GEZIERT

Harrisburg, PA: G. S. Peters, 1837. Original Wrappers. Good binding. 18mo. 18 leaves, illus. As issued, in original printed wrappers; printed only on one side of each leaf such that the book alternates between printed and then blank page-spreads. Wrappers rubbed with some creasing; contents a bit toned; two leaves with very small loss in the middle touching 2 words on one leaf and 4 on another. An attractive copy of a scarce book.

Wrappers are a striking orange, calendared paper with border and title on the upper wrapper and bordered engraving of a soldier and civilian clasping hands on the lower. 15 additional half-page engravings printed in color above the text. An additional small vignette with color on the title page. Opposite the title and serving as a frontispiece of a sort is a fraktur alphabet in hornbook fashion. The American Antiquarian Society has this edition as well as an earlier edition printed in 1835. Also issued by Peters is an English edition with the same illustrations. In an online exhibition on color printing the curators at the American Antiquarian Society remark, "Pennsylvania Dutch printer Gustav Sigismund Peters (1793-1847) . . . excelled at the use of multiblock color wood engravings in his children's titles, running his books through the press multiple times to create the colored scenes on each page. At its best, his work set a new standard for colored illustrations in picture books in Antebellum America." In general Peters imprints are uncommon, but examples of his children's books with color wood-engravings are remarkably scarce in commerce despite having been reprinted with some regularity. In 1988 Sotheby's auctioned a collection of several dozen of his books and broadsides realizing nearly $10,000. An important example of a notable Pennsylvania printer. Not recorded in American Imprints.