Description

This rare volume includes chapters 35-50 of the Book of Genesis, written in Dutch in a system of embossed reading for blind, developed by William Moon (1818—1894). The first page in Dutch explains the letters and gives additional information on how to teach students the system. This is the third volume in the series of three.

William Moon (1818—1894) from Brighton, who lost his sight at the age of 21 and after that worked as a teacher for blind children. In 1943, he developed his own writing system for blind, which he first published in 1845.

Moon’s system differs from the Braille alphabet by its simpler forms, which were based on Latin letters and were mostly made for people, who lost or partly lost their sight as adults and were familiar with the script.

Moon’s system is still used today, mostly for people, who have problems memorizing or recognizing the Braille system, which was 1878 made a standard system by the International Congress on Work for the Blind.

Moon was publishing in English language as well as in various foreign languages. Parts of the Bible were transcribed in the Moon system in Danish, Norse, Hindustani, Irish, Armenian, Gaelic, Italian, Spanish, Ladino, Ningbo dialect, Welsh, Dutch, German, French, Arabic, Swedish, Armeno-Turkish, Tahitian, Shanghainese, Kaffir, Portuguese, Hebrew and Bengali. Moon’s press was also publishing other books and also maps, printed in relief.

Our book is not dated, but it was probably printed before 1879, as The Book of Genesis in Dutch, printed in three volumes, is already mentioned in Moon’s memoires Light for Blind, issued in 1879 (2nd edition, the first edition form 1877 is not available to us). He also mentions, that in 1860, he travelled to Rotterdam to advise the Blind School in the city on the printing of the Bible for blind with his system. It was the first publication, based on his system, to be published abroad. From the text it is unclear, what part of the Bible was printed first, but until 1879 nine parts of the Bible were published in 14 volumes in Dutch language. According to Moon, they were also intended to be distributed in the colonies.

Note on Rarity

All of the William Moon’s publications appear to be rare, especially in non-English languages. We could not trace any examples of the Dutch Book of Genesis on Worldcat, although the books might be listed under other descriptions, as the titles are often unclear.
We could only find a fragment of the Book on Genesis on 16 pages in Hebrew, written in Moon’s system, housed by the University of Pennsylvania Libraries (OCLC 29490170).

References: Cf.: William Moon, Light for the Blind, A History of the Origin and Success of Moon’s System of Reading (embossed in 131 Languages) for the Blind, 1879 (2nd edition), p. 175.