First edition, first state

Herzl, Theodor. Der Judenstaat. Versuch einer modernen Lösung der Judenfrage.

€ 12,500.00

First edition, first state (one of 300 copies): Theodor Herzl's landmark manifesto for an independent Jewish state, commonly called the single most important manifesto of modern Zionism. "That a Jewish State was created in Palestine within fifty years of [Herzl's] death was due to the vision and the practical methods of Herzl, expressed in [this] manifesto of 1896" (PMM). "Zionism had acquired a leader. This was the most significant, immediate result of the publication" (Heymann, p. 103).

This copy, from the collection of the German-born journalist and literary agent Felix Guggenheim, founder of the Pacific Press, is an extremely scarce first state of the first edition. According to the Israeli journalist Shlomo Shva and the Judaica auction house Kedem, the true first edition was published in merely 300 copies. In the same year, an edition of 3,000 copies was published. The first state can be identified by the printer's device at the end of the booklet, which contains one flower and points to the left (as in this copy). In the second state of 3,000 copies, there are two flowers pointing left and right. In his diaries, Herzl discusses at length the writing and publication of his monumental pamphlet. Because first state copies were provided primarily to associates and friends of Herzl, they are especially desirable.

In the accompanying copied letter, Guggenheim writes to his son in 1973: "Dear Son, You will remember that I showed you in my collection an original print of the booklet, which Theodor Herzl, a young Austrian journalist, published in 1896 - not so long ago - and which more than any other event lead to the State of Israel. It is one of the most impressive proofs for the might of the pen".