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Influential exposition on the Talmud translated into French by famed orientalist Emanuel Oskar Menahem Deutsch. The translation was done, with the authorization of the author, by Theophile Baudaunas. The title page, in red and black ink, has a device comprised of a winged figure enwrapped and holding furls of what might be described as scrolls. There are several ornamental headers and initial letters. Le Talmud was issued in a run of only two-hundred-sixty-five numbered copies, fifteen on China paper, two-hundred-fifty on papier vergé. This copy is number 47. Many of the leaves are still uncut and the original wrappers are included in the rebound edition.
Deutsch’s essay on the Talmud, first printed in the Quarterly Review for Oct., 1867, is believed to have created a greater sensation than any other review article in England dealing with a purely literary subject, and caused that number of the Quarterly to be repeatedly reprinted. The article itself was translated into several languages, and contributed to an interest in the Talmud wherever the essay was read. Though there was little that was new in the facts adduced—the literary history being derived from Wolf and the wise and witty sayings from Dukes—yet the skill with which the pertinent topics were grouped, the brilliancy of the style, and the underlying enthusiasm of the writer made it a striking performance. Some of its effect was due to the implied suggestion that the key to the life of the founder of Christianity was to be sought for in the surrounding ideas in Palestine. The renewed attention given to the Talmud in Christian circles, at any rate in England, was undoubtedly due to the article.
Emanuel Oskar Menahem Deutsch (1829–1873) was born in Neisse (Upper Saxony). He studied Jewish subjects with his uncle David Deutsch at Myslowice (Poland) and classics in Berlin. He became an assistant in the oriental department of the British Museum in 1855. Deutsch’s literary work outside the museum was of two kinds: either, purely scientific essays, acute-in criticism and lucid in statement, or brilliant popular expositions of some learned work, like this famous essay on the Talmud. Deutsch, who possessed great ability in deciphering inscriptions, cooperated in W.S.A. Vaux's edition of Phoenician Inscriptions (1863) and in W. Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible (1871) to which he contributed articles on the Targumim, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and other Bible versions. Deutsch contributed nearly 200 articles to Chambers' Encyclopaedia. Some of his work was published posthumously in book form (Literary Remains, 1874) and edited by Lady Strangford.
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