ALLYN, Avery, Ritual und Aufdeckung der Freimaurerei, der Gesellschaften der Oranienmanner und seltsamen Gesellen; mit vielen Bildern, einem Schlussel zu dem Phi Beta Kappa, so wie auch einer Darstellung des, an William Morgan, wegen Enthullung der Geheimnisse der Maurerei begangenen Menschenraubes und Morbes. Aus englischen Schriften gezogen von einem Freunde des Lichtes., in Comission dei Leopold Michelsen, 1838

Small 8vo., contemporary quarter leather binding with marbled-paper boards, gilt lettering and ornamentation to spine, pp. iv, 307, with 24 b/w illustrative plates. Binding somewhat dry, worn and bumped, pages slightly browned, otherwise a very good copy of a very rare book. First German translation of Allyn’s vituperative attack on Freemasonry, exposing its rituals and the disappearance and murder of the anti-Mason William Morgan. The translation was probably taken from the English edition published in London in 1837. An earlier edition, in English, appeared in Philadelphia in 1831 without mention of a section on William Morgan in its title. Morgan was an American who threatened to expose Freemasonry secrets. In 1826, Morgan went missing. He was presumed to have been kidnapped and murdered, a controversy which led to the flourishing of an anti-Masonic movement in America. Allyn, the author of this book, had been a Freemason before absconding from the order, describing the Freemasons as ‘a lawless banditti’. Text in German.