"The Complete Poems of Yehuda Leib Gordon", First Edition, Third Volume – Copy with Numerous Glosses Handwritten by ...

"The Complete Poems of Yehuda Leib Gordon", First Edition, Third Volume – Copy with Numerous Glosses Handwritten by Yehuda Leib Gordon
The Complete Poems of Yehuda Leib Gordon, in four volumes – third volume. St. Petersburg: Society of the lovers of the Hebrew language, G.P. Pines and Yeshaya Zederboim Press, 1884. An additional title page in Russian. First edition (one of the two variants published in 1884). Hebrew.
The third volume of the first edition of "The Complete poems Yehuda Leib Gordon", featuring seven poems revolving around biblical and historical themes.
Author's copy, with dozens of glosses, comments, emendations and additions by Yehuda Leib Gordon. Y.L.G. wrote the glosses and comments at various times (the glosses are written in pen and pencil, in both cursive and square script; some are vowelized while others are not), presumably towards the printing of a new edition. The imprint of the second edition, published in Vilnius in 1898 by Mordechai Katzenelboigen and the Bletnitzki brothers, is handwritten on the title page.
Most of the glosses and comments were embedded in the following editions of the book. One of the unpublished comments includes an interesting reference to the affair of Gordon's arrest in 1879. In this comment (p. 145), appearing alongside the poem "Osnat the daughter of Potipherah" which describe Joseph's wish to be let out of the Egyptian prison, Gordon writes: "I had written these words in the summer of 1865, fourteen years before I experienced them firsthand in the summer of 1879" (this comment was not printed in following editions).
One of the comments (p. 208) is hand-signed by Gordon.
Yehuda Leib Gordon (1830-1892), a poet, writer, journalist and critic, born in Vilnius. One of the greatest Jewish poets of the Jewish Enlightenment and one of its prominent spokesmen. He worked as a teacher in Ponivezh, Šiauliai and Telz for 20 years. In the 1860s he started publishing articles in Russian Jewish newspapers, and was a constant contributor to the newspaper "Hamelitz". He was one of the editors of "Hamagid", the Russian-Jewish journal "Voskhod" and the "Brockhaus-Efron" Jewish-Russian encyclopedia. In his articles, he called for the promotion of Enlightenment among the Jewish masses and for a reform in religious institutions. In 1872, he moved to St. Petersburg, where he became the secretary of the Jewish community and the first secretary of the Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Russia. In 1879, he was arrested for undermining the regime of the Russian Tzar, spending 40 days in prison, and then was exiled to Pudazh, Olonets district (where he wrote the poem King Zedekiah in Prison).
[4], 1-16, 19-209, [3] pp. (missing pp. 17-18). Approx. 25 cm. Fair condition. Stains, including ink stains. Creases. Tears to several leaves, including some open tears. Notations and scribbles to several leaves (in pencil). Several leaves partly detached. Censor's approval (in red ink) and stamp as well as bookstore stamp, reading "Buchhandlung S. Funk" on title page. Inscribed in Yiddish on inside front board. Cloth-covered card binding, with leather spine. Binding scuffed and worn, partly detached. Open tear to spine.