The Wessobrunn Prayer, sometimes called the Wessobrunn Creation Poem (Wessobrunner Gebet), believed to date from around 790, is among the earliest known poetic works in Old High German. Princeton University Library holds three copies of this 1922 facsimile edition of the manuscript. The one in graphic arts comes to us from the collection of Elmer Adler.

Written in a Bavarian dialect, the poem is named after Wessobrunn Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Bavaria. For centuries it was the repository of the manuscript, which is now in the Bavarian State Library in Munich.

Bound in a facsimile leather binding, the volume is blind-stamped with brass bosses & wooden peg in leather clasp. Ours comes with Die handschrift des Wessobrunner Gebets; Geleitwort zu der faksimile-ausgabe von A. von Eskardt, von Carl von Kraus (Munich: Kurt Wolff Verlag, 1922). The 1923 edition at Marquand Library includes an English language translation.