Dekadische Lieder für die Franken am Rhein. Strasbourg, 1794.
First Edition. 12mo (162 x 95 mm), pp. [viii], 134, [2] contents, printed in black letter, browned throughout, a couple of small ink blots, in contemporary speckled boards, plain spine, worn at extremities, red sprinkled edges, top dusty, with an elaborate full-page manuscript ownership inscription on the front free endpaper.
Apparently the only edition of this collection of anthems and patriotic songs printed in Strasbourg for the German-speaking population of the French Rhineland. The repurposing of well-known folk tunes for republican songs was a popular practice in the Revolution, but this appears to be one of the first to have been published for use in German-speaking regions of France. While the French-language equivalent of this kind of work would have used almost entirely folk songs, Lamey turns also to Lutheranism for his inspiration: ‘Ein feste Burg’ provides the tune for ‘Lied von der Republic’, while the patriotic hymn ‘An den Schöpfer’ is sung to ‘Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern’.
This copy has a wonderfully elaborate calligraphic ownership inscription on the front free endpaper, translating as ‘This Song Book, written following the New Constitution, belongs to Frau Susanna Katharina Hammännin of Oberhaüßbergen. Written on the ninth of Frimaire in the third year of the Republic’.
OCLC lists Berlin, Mainz, Bern, Freiburg, Harvard and Indiana.