Seder Haggadah shel Pesah (Order of the Passover Haggadah), Wilhermsdorf: Tzvi Hirsch ben Haim of Furth, 1716

32 leaves (6 1/4 x 3 3/4 in.; 160 x 95 mm). Unfoliated. Title page within double frame of printer's devices;  ten woodcut illustrations, decorative tailpiece. Owners' notes on front pastedown endpaper; f.28 detached; other leaves tenuous; cracked at gutter; cropped. Soiled and stained; some worming. Early decorated paper over vellum. Worn.

Ya'ari, 80; Yudlov, 130; Freimann, 62; Moshe Nathan Rosenfeld, Jewish Printing in Wilhermsdorf, London : Rosenfeld, 1995: #70

The first Passover Haggadah designed for children

Tzvi Hirsch ben Haim of Furth printed over 150 Hebrew books from the time he acquired the press in Wilhermsdorf in 1712 until he returned to his native Furth some 27 years later.  Among these, Tzvi Hirsch had printed a larger unillustrated folio edition of the Haggadah in 1715 that included the commentary of Isaac Abravanel as well as a kabbalistic commentary  and halakhic material from Yehiel Michel Epstein's Kizur Shnei Luhot ha-Brit.   It was a learned work that was certainly designed for serious study and analysis by those competent in Rabbinic texts. 

By contrast, this pocket-sized edition, published the following year and adorned with illustrations, was clearly intended for a much different audience.  The title page makes clear that this volume is endowed with "sweet pictures, appealing to those who see them, and especially for children who recline at their fathers' tables, in order that they may not slumber and that they inquire as to the distinctions."  Vernacular Yiddish instructions were also included that would make them more easily understandable to children whose Hebrew was restricted to liturgy and scripture. Finally, in an effort to keep the children awake until the end of the seder, Tzvi Hirsch added interlinear Yiddish translations to the Ehad Mi Yode'a  and Had Gadya, the two songs that close the seder and are perennial children's favorites. 

This haggadah was doubtlessly intended to serve as an inexpensive complement to the more elaborate haggadot used by adults.  This may help explain the less than pristine condition of this exemplar as well as the overall scarcity of this edition.