Sterben und Erben, Abraham a Sancta Clara, First Edition 1702. 

Size: 10 1/2 x 8 1/2 in. 

This book is titled Sterben und Erben and was part of the German Baroque literature movement of the seventeenth century. It was written by Abraham a Sancta Clara, an Augustinian monk and friar who was very popular in the 1600’s and early 1700’s.  

The title means “A Way to Die and Inherit Salvation”, the book is in German, it was published in Amsterdam by George Gallet in 1702, and it’s a first edition, according to WorldCat.  

German Baroque literature was written roughly between 1600 and 1720 and reflected the intense political, religious, and social upheaval of the Thirty Years’ War and the Protestant Reformation and was characterized by themes like transience, death, and religious salvation.  

The full title is “Sterben und Erben, Das ist / die schoenste Vorbereitung zum Tode / Oder Sicherste Arth zu sterben, und die Seeligkeit zu Erben / Durch Betrachtung des bittern Leydens und Sterbens unsers eintzgen und liebsten heylandes Jesu Christi”, which means “Dying and inheriting, that is / the most beautiful preparation for death / Or the surest way to die and inherit salvation / By contemplating the bitter suffering and death of our only and dearest Savior Jesus Christ”, and the title page says the book is decorated with beautiful copperplates and was recently presented in French by Mr. De Chertablon, a priest who had a licentiate in theology, which means he had an advanced degree in theology, and the book was translated into French by I. A. F. -  we don’t know who I. A. F. was - and towards the bottom of the page, Abraham a S. Clara  was described as an Augustinian and an Imperial preacher. 

More background on Abraham a Sancta Clara: he was born in 1644, died in 1709 and was considered an eccentric, but very popular monk. Born Johann Ulrich Megerle, he changed his name after his father died and was sent to a Benedictine school in Salzburg. In 1677 he was appointed imperial court preacher by Leopold I, the Hapsburg monarch, and two years later he survived the black plague - bubonic plague - in Vienna, which greatly influenced his writing. (76,000 people alone died in Vienna during the plague.) He wrote several works, including “Judas the Archknave”, his works had an influence on Schiller and Heidegger, and the antisemitic tone in some of his works might have influenced members of the Third Reich. 

The book has brown boards, a faded gilt title with five raised bands on the spine, incised ruled borders on the covers, blank endpapers with penciled notes in front,  a striking engraving of a skeleton representing Death for a frontispiece - the  skeleton is knocking at a door and holding an hourglass and scythe, and above the door is written “statutum est omnibus hominibus semel mori”, which means “we are appointed once to die” - very macabre stuff - then the title page in red and black letters, a two-page invocation by Fr. Abraham to Franz Ferdinand Rummell (a religious educator and future bishop of Vienna), then a Table of Contents, fourteen pages about death titled Du muest Sterben (You Must Die),   a two-page Introduction (Vorbericht), a twenty-one page Preface (Vorrede) with publisher’s notes in the margins - the main idea is that death is inevitable - then six pages of teachings about death (from 22 - 27), the Preliminaries on page 3 (Vorberiche) say the work is divided into three parts, each consisting of 13 copperplate engravings: the first part tells what happened at the Holy Supper of Jesus, the next part describes what happened after the Holy Supper until  the crucifixion, the third part shows the suffering of Jesus before his death, and the last page of the third part says that death is a sad part of our lives and can cause fear, while the rest of the book describes how these fears can be banished before death. 

There are 39 copperplate engravings altogether (thirteen per part x 3 is 39), the descriptions of the engravings are on the left and the engravings are always on the right, and all the engravings are present, the last engraving on page 109 is unpaginated, and all the engravings are present, plus the frontispiece.   

The book measures 10 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches wide and is in good condition, with a firm binding, except for a weak hinge just after the Table of Contents (the page is titled Du Muest Sterben), faded gilt on the spine, light scratches, pinholes and marks on the covers, light wear at the tips, light browning and pinholes on some pages, a hole in the margin on page 4, offset from some of the engravings, and overall in good condition.  

The book is rare: we found only four copies in Special Collections around the world, according to WorldCat (three in Germany - one at the Scientific City Library in Mainz, one at Kassel University, and one at the University and State Library of Saxony-Anhalt - and one in Prague in the Czech Republic). The only auction records we found were for a copy sold at Ketterer Kunst in 2005 for €952 ($1120) and another sold at Galerie Bassenge in 2010 for €440 ($490), other books by Sancta Clara have sold for up to $18,400, and some people might think the book is too macabre for their tastes, but the book is about a macabre topic - the black plague - so we’re starting the bidding low to generate interest in the book and help them get over their fear of the macabre. 

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