Second recorded copy of the second edition of the extremely rare first spiritual "handbook", a posthumous collection of 35 short lessons and advisory texts plus an appendix, all written by the leading Dutch Anabaptist and "arch-heretic" David Joris (ca. 1501/02-1556), the nine dated ones from 1544 to the year of his death. Many remained unpublished until they appeared in the Handt-boecxken around 1590, taken from Joris's manuscripts in the hands of his family. The appendix contains an untitled series of 16 brief advisory texts, each beginning with a different letter of the alphabet in order from A to Q. The book closes with an index, listing the 35 titles alphabetically. Although Joris's name appears nowhere in the book, the titles page says the texts were written by "D.J.".
At least four editions of the first Handt-boecxken appeared, from ca. 1590 to 1616, but each is known only from 1 or 2 surving copies or in one case only from a surviving title-page and a lost copy. In the years ca. 1605 to 1626 three further collections of Joris's short texts appeared in new handbooks that mixed unpublished texts with reprints of texts that had become difficult to obtain. Although the first handbook was designed to stand alone and remains the most important one, the titles of the later handbooks numbered them from two to four as a continuation of the present one.
By trade a glass painter, Joris became one of the most influential figures in Anabaptism, preaching humility and self-denial. He rejected the reliance on scripture, promoted spiritualism and "made a principal of mystical experience" (Mennonite Encyclopedia), which brought him into conflict with the authorities. Three years after he died in Basel, the authorities discovered his identity, exhumed his body and burnt it in the market place as a heretic. Many of his writings were published during his lifetime, but after 1559 few if any new Joris editions appeared for 25 years. In late 1582 Joris's followers commissioned Dirck Mullem, a Rotterdam printer, to produce a new edition of Joris's 1551 Wonderboeck. The Dutch authorities banished Mullem from Holland for six years (later reduced to three) from 29 March 1583, so he worked in Vianen from 1583 to 1586, completing the Wonderboeck there in 1584. Thereafter he printed many works by Joris, including many unpublished manuscripts that had remained in the hands of Joris's family. He produced most of these after he returned to Rotterdam in 1586, though when he confessed under interrogation to having printed some of them he claimed he had printed them before his return. He remained the principal printer of Joris's publications until he closed his printing office or turned it over to others around 1598. The first Handt-boecxken is one of the most important Joris works he produced.
With some mostly marginal water stains, an occasional minor spot or smudge and a small marginal tear in 1 leaf, but still in good condition and only slightly trimmed (about 2 or 3 mm at the head and fore-edge), retaining deckles at the foot of a few leaves. The spine and straps have been restored and the headbands replaced, but the binding is otherwise in good condition, with the tooling clear. Second known copy of the second edition of a very rare and important posthumous publication of short works by the Anabaptist "arch-heretic" David Joris, in contemporary blind-tooled calf. J.G. Boekenoogen, Cat. ... Doopsgezinden (1919), p. 66 (now at Amsterdam U); Hillerbrand, Bibl. of Anabaptism (1962), 3129 (same copy); KVK & WorldCat (same copy plus 1 copy of 1st ed. & 1 lost copy of false "1585" ed.); Netherlandish books 17243 (same copy listed as 2 copies); STCN (same copy plus 1 copy of 1st ed.); USTC (same copy, listed as 2 copies); Valkema Blouw, "Printers to David Joris", in: Quaerendo, 21 (1991), pp. 164-209 at p. 209 (see also pp. 192-201), reprinted in Valkema Blouw, Dutch typography, pp. 495-542, at p. 535 (see also pp. 522-527) (same copy); Valkema Blouw, Typ. Batava 2289 (same copy); cf. V.d. Linde, David Joris 218 (1st ed. without location); not in Belg. Typ.; Bibl. Belg.; for the author: Mennonite Encyclopedia II, pp. 17-19.