The Form of Prayers According to the Custom of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, Philadelphia: Isaac Leeser, 1837-1838, 6 volumes

Six volumes (9 x 5 1/2 in.; 228 x 140 mm) vol. 1:  iii-viii pp., 216 ff. (pp. i-ii wanting); lightly stained, some foxing, some wear from normal use; vol.2: 121 ff.; vol 3: [2], 246 ff. [3pp.], f.1 trimmed, (includes supplement to vol 3); vol 4: 176 ff.; vol 5: 182 ff.; vol 6: [2], 186 ff.;[4], 12 pp.; some foxing. Assembled, with owners' names in vols. 2,5. Marbled endpapers. Crimson calf antique with gilt-tooled triple fillet, spine in five compartments with raised bands, gilt titles on two black lettering pieces, other compartments with gilt diaper pattern.

Uriah Hendricks-his stamp in vol. 2 (ff. 2r,4r, 120v) and vol. 4 (ff.2r, 4r, 175v).  Hendricks was one of the original pre-publication subscribers (see subscription list on [p.1] of vol.6.); David de Sola Pool- his signature in English in vol. 5 (2nd free endpaper) and in Hebrew as signatory to presentation to Leah (Lilian) Gold, 1920. Also, an additional undated loose leaf containing sermonic notes in his hand; Leah (Lilian) Gold- inscribed and presented to her (vol. 3) in June 1920 by David de Sola Pool. Her signature and notation dated Jerusalem, June 1929 in vol. 5. Also, her calling card, loose.

Goldman and Kinsberg, Hebrew Printing in America, #36.

The first comprehensive Jewish liturgy printed in America

This set of prayer books published by Reverend Isaac Leeser, hazzan of Philadelphia's Mikveh Israel congregation, represents the first comprehensive Jewish liturgy produced in America.  Comprising all the Tefillot for the entire year, the production of these volumes was a multifaceted and complex undertaking made more remarkable by the fact that it was accomplished in just over one year in 1837-38.  He would have been finished even sooner, Leeser tells us in his preface, if not for his inability to locate any typesetters in Philadelphia familiar with Hebrew characters.  Consequently Leeser undertook to teach the Holy Tongue to Christian typesetters Benjamin George Smith and Jacob Washington Fletcher, whose facility in the newly acquired language he praises highly.  For the English translation, Leeser relied heavily on the London edition of David Levi although Leeser himself revised the text considerably.  For the Hebrew text he made use of a wide variety of published liturgies, with the final product having some very unique characteristics.  A close examination reveals several of these curiosities.  In volume six, devoted to the liturgy of Fast-Days, Leeser, in addition to his English translation, provides an interlinear Spanish commentary for the Hebrew Haftara of Tisha B'av.  To appeal to Jews in England as well as to their American coreligionists, Leeser included two distinct iterations of the prayer for the government, one for a monarchy and another for a republic.  Much more parochial in nature are the printed notations, found in several volumes, that certain prayers are omitted in Philadelphia.  This set would become the benchmark against which other American Jewish prayer books would be measured for many years to come.  Its popularity is attested to by the numerous subsequent reprinted editions

In addition to his decades of service in the pulpit of Philadelphia's congregation Mikveh Israel, where he was the first to introduce a regular English sermon into the synagogue service, Isaac Leeser's accomplishments as an architect of the American Jewish community include the founding of the first Jewish Publication Society (1845), the first Hebrew high school (1849), and Maimonides College, the first American Jewish rabbinical seminary, in 1867.  A prolific writer, in 1843 he founded the monthly The Occident, the first successful Jewish newspaper in America. For 25 years, this was an important forum for articles on Jewish life and thought. His major literary achievement was the first American translation of the Bible, published in 1845. This remained the standard American Jewish translation of the Bible until the new JPS edition of 1917.