WEITLING, Wilhelm.

Das Evangelium eines armen Sünders.

Bern, Jenni, 1845. 8vo, pp. [2], iv, [5]–133, [1] blank; excised section of title-page repaired; a little side-lining in pencil, with some light offsetting; contemporary patterned cloth, soiled and sunned. Very scarce first edition of the work in which Weitling ‘proclaimed in prophetic language, like a revivalist preacher, his gospel of revolution, liberation and equality, attacked the forces of money and property, and called for a Messiah to lead the workers to a society of equals governed by scientists and sages’ (Australian Marxist Review 39, Feb. 1998). After completing his first major work, Garantien der Harmonie und Freiheit (1842), Weitling turned to a new topic: to prove the compatibility of communism and Christianity. With the new work still in manuscript, he had a subscription prospectus printed in 1843; but, alarmed by its content, the Zurich church council endeavoured to have its publication stopped on religious grounds. Weitling was duly arrested, his manuscript confiscated, and was subjected to solitary confinement for ten months. Only on his release could he arrange for his ‘gospel of a poor sinner’ to be published, before his eventual banishment from Switzerland for good.Stammhammer I, 261; OCLC locates 5 copies (Library of Congress, Chicago, Louisiana, Harvard, and Johns Hopkins).

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