Berggren, Guillaume (and others).MareMagnum
4 134 résultats
Oblong album (370 x 284 mm) with 47 large albumen photographic prints, generally ca. 20 x 26 to ca. 22 x 28 cm, mostly signed and captioned in the negative (in French), mounted on both sides of the album's leaves. Original half calf binding with burgundy cloth covers, title gilt to upper cover. All edges gilt. A rare souvenir album containing 40 photographs of Istanbul and 7 of Athens. The Turkish images are almost exclusively signed by the renowned studio of Guillaume Berggren (1835-1920), the Swedish-born photographer who had come to Constantinople in 1866 and remained there for the rest of his life. Berggren's photographs were particularly popular with Scandinavian, German and Austrian tourists seeking souvenirs of their Middle-Eastern journey. The present album includes landscapes and city views, famous sights such as the Galata Tower and Bridge, the Yeni Cami Mosque, the Hagia Sophia with its interiors, a "shadirvan" fountain for ritual ablutions in front of the Hagia Sophia, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, Rüstem Pasha Mosque, Skutari Cemetery, views of the Golden Horn, street scenes, dervishes, the Bosporus, the French embassy in Tarabya, the city port, the steps leading up the Grand Street of Pera (where Berggren's studio was located), etc. The Greek views include Mount Lycabettus, a two-image panorama of the Acropolis, the Olympieion and the so-called Theseion (Temple of Hephaestus). - A few photographs show insignificant loss of contrast, but they are altogether in good condition, mostly preserving their original crispness. A few images captioned in pencil on the backboard. Corners of binding bumped; leather chafed and spine-ends more markedly flawed. A fine collection.
4to. VIII, 71, 57 pp. Giltstamped red boards. First edition of this treatise on the origins of the non-Christian religions of the Orient, written by Notaras Chrysantis (c. 1670-1735) and here edited in the original Arabic text with Latin translation and critical apparatus after a ms. in the Göttingen University Library. G. H. Bernstein (1787-1860) taught oriental languages at the universities of Berlin and Breslau. He is chiefly famous for his preliminary studies for the "Thesaurus Syriacus", a dictionary of Syriac produced after his death by Robert Payne Smith. - Contemporary autograph ownership and review note of the Marburg oriental scholar Johann Melchior Hartmann (1764-1827), among whose work is a "Commentatio de geographia Africae Edrisiana", published in 1792. Later stamp of the Basel chemist Dr. Remy Cantieni (1940s). Last in the Ottoman collection of the Swiss industrialist Herry W. Schaefer. - Rare. ADB II, 485.
Oblong 4to. Album with 148 small original black and white photographs on 18 ff. Contemporary giltstamped full cloth with printed title and 2 silhouette images. Extremley rare photographs from the first successful motor crossing of the desert from Damascus to Baghdad in 1919, preceding by four years the well-known efforts by the Nairn brothers, which resulted in the establishment of the overland mail service between Damascus and Baghdad. The photographs were taken by the 18-year old Eric Blackwell, who had planned to enlist as a pupil pilot in the RAF, had his training cut short by the Armistice, and decided instead to volunteer for the projected desert expedition. Carried out by a military convoy of 10 Model T Fords and some 15 men under the command of Lt. Col. Keeling, the aim of the expedition was to set up a chain of whitewashed stone markers to aid the pilots of an air mail service between the eastern Mediterranean and India, cutting out the lengthy Suez-Aden-Bombay sea route. - The photographs document the journey from Cairo to Haifa by train, then on to Damascus on established roads, up to the expedition's last outpost before the open desert, Dumair. The following pictures show the men setting up the stone signs, repairing their vehicles, sometimes having to push them forward (a total of six Fords had to be abandoned along the way), posing for group pictures, and travelling through the vast desert landscape, stops along the way including Abu Kamal, Ana, Ramadi and Fallujah, before reaching Baghdad, and going on to the ruins of Babylon, Basra, Bombay, Aden, and Suez. - Photographs are mounted in groups, with captions in English. Enclosed is an envelope containing seven loose photographs torn from the album, as well as a brief typewritten account of the journey, and correspondence relating to the loan of photographs for a magazine article, referring to it as a "grand trip". - Extremities lightly bumped. A few photographs loose; traces of photographs torn away in places. Impressive visual material of this little-known epic journey. Cf. Aramco World July/August 1981, vol. 32, nr. 4.
8vo. (IV), XII, 72 pp. Half-title, wood-engraved portrait of Jean-Auguste de Thou to title. 20th century panelled calf. Written at Poitou ca. 1745, this work was not published until 1864 at the end of an edition of Jacques du Fouilloux's "La Venerie". Harting recommends it and writes that his "treatise conveys a good idea of the state of falconry in the 18th century in Poitou, where the native Goshawk was much used". - Occasional spotting, heavier to endpapers. Harting 202. Schwerdt I, 74. Thiébaud 109.
Oblong folio (340 x 250 mm). 48 albumen photographs mounted on card, each approximately 225 x 280 mm. Contemporary olive wooden boards decorated with the cross of Jerusalem; red calf spine. A thorough collection of Bonfils studio photography of Palestine and surroundings. - Félix Bonfils (1831-85) was a French-born photographer who had come to the Levant with General d'Hautpoul in 1860 and remained active in the East. Based in Beirut, Bonfils produced thousands of photographs depicting Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Greece and other parts of the Ottoman Empire. In the early days of Western tourism to the Middle East, his works soon became popular as souvenirs. - The photographs largely depict views in and around Jerusalem as well as six portrait and group shots showing traditional fashions. Included are scenes of Jaffa, the exterior and interior of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the "Mosque of Omar" (Dome of the Rock, Qubbat as-Sakhra) and the Al-Aqsa (Qibli) Mosque, scenes of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, among others. The handsome olive binding, with its carved cross and decorative inlay, underlines the value of Bonfils photographs as fine mementos of trips to the Holy Land in the late 19th century, during a rise in tourism European tourism and interest in the Levant. - Light exterior wear; well preserved.
4to. (8), 800, (36) pp. With 4 folding engr. plates (Europe, Asia, Africa, America). - (Bound with) II: The same. Della ragioni di stato, libri dieci. Ibid., 1640. (8), 264 pp. Contemporary vellum with ms. spine title. Famous geographical treatise by Giovanni Botero (1544-1617), with Arabia pictured on both the Asia and the Africa plate, and discussions of the Arabian Peninsula (pp. 120 ff.), the Middle East (pp. 123 ff.), "Arabia troglodotica" [!] (p. 130 f.), Egypt (pp. 131 ff.). Originally conceived as a statistical examination of the ecumenical propagation of Christianity, in subsequent editions the work gradually expanded until it formed a comprehensive repertory of anthropology and geography, with systematic accounts of the physical properties, demographics, economic resources, military power, and political constitution of all states of the world. - Appended to this is Botero's famous treatise "Della ragion di Stato" (The Reason of State), in which Botero argues - against Machiavelli - that a prince's power must be based on some form of consent of his subjects, and princes must make every effort to win the people's affection and admiration. - Some browning throughout; occasional insignificant edge defects and small tears; traces of old library stamps. Graesse I, 504. Cf. Cox I, 71.
8vo. (12), 378 pp., final blank f. - (Bound with): Sylburg, Friedrich. Saracenica, sive Moamethica. Ibid., 1595. (8), 152 pp. Both works have printer's woodcut device to title page. Contemporary blindstamped vellum. I: An uncommon edition. The book was first published by Prevosteau in Paris in 1590 from the author's notes ("ex adversariis"). Essentially the sources drawn on are purely those of ancient writers, both Greek and Latin, from whom there is extensive quotation. Book I is concerned with the Persian rulers and their history, book II with religious and social life, and book III with military organisation and prowess, both ancient and modern. Brisson (1531-91) was a distinguished jurist and author of important works, notably the legal code of Henri III, but no traveller. He was hanged by the "Ligueurs" on 15 Nov. 1591. The "Typographus lectori" makes it very clear how difficult were the circumstances in which Brisson found himself, the very walls of the city being shaken by bombardment, and the shadow of death being seen everywhere, and the very opening paragraph of the text, in which Brisson speaks of "Regii nominis decus, imperii maiestatem, totumque regni statum", has contemporary resonance. Friedrich Sylburg, who acted as editor and proof-reader for the Commelin atelier, has added just a few notes at the end, the preface to these claiming that the original Paris edition of 1590 had been full of errors of transcription and editing. - II: Bound with this is the first edition of Sylburg's "Saracenica", a "theological compilation with many magical deliberations" (cf. Göllner 1878) providing a German Protestant apology against Islam based on works of the Oriental church. Contains extracts from the Panoplia of Zigabenus, a treatise against the "false prophet" Muhammad, the catechism for Saracene converts to Christianity, as well as extracts from Eutychius, Theophanes and Anastasius, printed in Greek and Latin parallel text. The "1591" edition cited by Göllner 1878 (a single supposed copy in Braunschweig) is a ghost, based on a misreading of the indistinct final digit of the imprint. - Binding stained; interior somewhat browned as common due to paper. Provenance: 1) Collection of the German historian Franz Dominikus Häberlin (1720-87) with his engr. bookplate on pastedown and monogrammed stamp on t. p. 2) Wilhelm Gesenius (1786-1842), German orientalist (his lithogr. bookplate on pastedown, with his acquisition note: "bought from D. Katsch [?] for 7 Silbergroschen"). 3) Franz Karl Movers (1806-56), German orientalist (his stamp on t. p.). 4) Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, Berlin (stamp on reverse of title-page; dispersed in 1942). 5) Swedish trade. Two additional 18th and 19th century ownerships ("C.S." and "Dr. Levin"). I: VD 16, B 8335. Adams B 2851. BM-STC German 154. OCLC 23620760. - II: VD 16, S 10353. Adams S 2137. BM-STC German 846. Göllner 2068 & cf. 1878. Smitskamp, PO 48. OCLC 17199693.
4to. XV, (1), 669, (1) pp. With a folding engraved map and 28 wood-engraved vignettes as chapter headings. Half brown calf over marbled boards, spine compartments ruled and decorated in gilt, burgundy morocco gilt lettering label. First edition. James Silk Buckingham (1786-1855), founder of the Calcutta Journal, Oriental Herald and Colonial Review, The Sphynx, and The Argus, social reformer and founding member of the British and Foreign Institute, travelled in the Middle East as a sea captain and merchant. This work relates the part of his travels which took him through Nazareth, the plains of the Hauran, Damascus, Tripoli, Lebanon and Balbec to Aleppo. An appendix refutes the charges of plagiarism brought by Burckhardt and Bankes against his Travels in Palestine. - Occasional light foxing and staining, slight offsetting from the engraved map to the titled. A very good copy. Blackmer 232. Tobler 143. Röhricht 1650. Howgego II, B69, p. 78.
Small folio (190 x 272 mm). 4 vols. (4), 682 pp. (4), XXV, (1), 649, (1) pp. (4), 700 pp. VIII, 676 pp. Modern green half leather over marbled boards with giltstamped title to spine. Monumental French translation of the great hadith collection known as the "Sahih al-Buchari", "in later times esteemed almost as highly as the Koran itself" (Brockelmann). It ranks as the first in importance of the six major canonical hadith collections, its authority and holiness surpassed only by the Holy Qur'an. - The French Arabist Octave Victor Houdas (1840-1916) taught at the École des langues orientales. His translation, the first complete edition, appeared within the "Publications de l'École des langues orientales vivantes", IVe série, vols. III-VI. - A few insignificant edge flaws, but on the whole a finely preserved set, uniformly bound in green half morocco. A milestone in French Islamic scholarship. Rare. GAL S I, 261. OCLC 493784348.
Large 4to (158 x 240 mm). (6), 219, XL, (29) pp. With different engraved vignette on each title-page and folding engraved plate. Contemporary Spanish marbled calf, flat spine with red morocco lettering-piece. Marbled endpapers. Edges sprinkled red. First joint edition in Arabic and Spanish. - The Neoplatonist Persian philosopher Ibn Miskawayh (932-1030) worked as a chancery official and librarian for various viziers of the Abbasid empire; many of his works show and document the influence of Greek philosophy on his thought. His Arabic paraphrase occasionally contains additional passages not recorded in the original Greek text. - The "Pinax" ("Table" or "Painting") is an allegorical moral sketch of human life commonly attributed to the Greek philosopher Cebes, a student of Socrates, though the book's real author likely flourished in the first century AD. The Neoplatonist and Pythagorean perspective of late Hellenistic Stocism earned the text great popularity among later readers: "To us, all this appears sterile and trite; yet its impact was such that even the visual arts attempted to recreate a fiction whose author in fact shows little graphic flair" (Wilamowitz). One such attempt to transfer the titular "painting" into an engraving is found in the present edition. - Extremities quite insignificantly rubbed; a very appealingly preserved copy. Hoffmann I, 447. Palau 50822 ("Bella edición"). Not in Engelmann/Preuss.
8vo. VIII, (4), 503, (1) pp. With 8 steel-engraved plates including the frontispiece (the 5 signed ones engraved by Pearson) and a folding map of the Indian Ocean, Red Sea and the Gulf, hand-coloured in outline (lithographed by Edward Weller). Red cloth. First edition (only edition until a 1968 facsimile) of a very detailed and well-illustrated account of a British naval campaign to suppress the East African slave trade in the years 1868 to 1870, published only eight years after the end of the United States' Civil War and the abolition of slavery there. Slavery was not outlawed in the Ottoman Empire (which at the time of publication included Egypt and what is now Iraq) until 1882, and in Iran and most of the Gulf States not until the 20th century. The author, Captain Philip Howard Colomb (1831-99), was Commander of the HMS Dryad from 1868 to 1870 and led the campaign. He operated primarily in and around the Gulf, Oman and Zanzibar and captured seven slave ships during those two years. The illustrations show the Dryad and some of the slave ships, individual and group portraits of slaves encountered during the campaign, and views of ports where slave trading occurred. One of the group portraits was engraved after a photograph made by one of the Dryad's officers and other illustrations after drawings by other officers. The map ("The slave trading waters of the Indian Ocean") shows the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, Red Sea and the Gulf, including Madagascar and the other islands. The first chapter relates Colomb's voyage to Aden, where he took command of the Dryad, and the next two chapters provide extensive background information to place the account of the campaign in context. Colomb's account of his own campaign includes chapters on individual regions (Bombay, Muscat and Oman, the Gulf, Madagascar, Zanzibar, etc.) and on various topics (slaves on board ship, the slave market, etc.). Colomb was promoted to Admiral after his retirement from active duty. The book is sometimes mistakenly ascribed to his younger brother, John Charles Ready Colomb. - Bookplate "HW". Spine sunned; insignificant foxing in the folding map, but otherwise in fine condition. Garrick, "Indian Ocean, post-exploration", in: Speake, Literature of travel and exploration (2003), pp. 608-610. WorldCat (4 copies). Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 5 (1873), p. 117.
Small folio (222 x 302 mm). 3 volumes bound as two. (32), 605, (1) pp. (14), 607-931, (1), 75, (1) pp. (16), 625, (1) pp. All 3 title-pages printed in red and black. Contemporary full mottled brown calf with giltstamped red labels to finely gilt spines (not uniform). Edges sprinkled red. Continuation of João de Barros's famous work on Portuguese colonial history in the Orient. First published in 1602, this is the first edition to include decade IX. Do Couto (1542-1616), chronicler and custodian of Torre do Tombo, begins with Decada IV, in continuation of de Barros's Decada III. (When de Barros's own Decada IV was discovered and posthumously published in 1615, the work effectively acquired another treatment of the same period with a different text, both numbered IV). "The 'Decades' contain "the early history of the Portuguese in India and Asia and reveal careful study of Eastern historians and geographers, as well as of the records of [the author's] own country. They are distinguished by clearness of exposition and orderly arrangement. They are also lively accounts" (Enc. Britannica). - Vols. I and II bound in a single volume. Some worming to spine-ends, with traces of worming to inner margin of the final four leaves of vol. III. A clean copy. Innocencio II, 154. Monteverde 1900. Cordier, BJ, 34 and BS, 2309. Cf. Macro 763. Not in Samodães or Ameal.
(16), 144, (4) pp. With woodcut printer's device on title-page, 3 full-page engravings in the text (including specimens of Arabic) and numerous ornamental woodcut initials and vignettes. - (Bound with) II: Hackspan, Theodor. Disputationum theologicarum & philologicarum sylloge [...]. Nuremberg, Johann Andreas Endter & Wolfgang Endter, 1663. (8), 616, (43) pp. Title-page printed in red and black. With several ornamental woodcut vignettes and head- and tailpieces. - (Bound with) III: Lipmann-Mühlhausen, Jom-Tob. Liber Nizachon Rabbi Lipmanni. Nuremberg, Wolfgang Endter, 1644. 4to. (14), 512, (24) pp. With additional engraved, illustrated title-page. Contemporary vellum with ms. title to spine. Nuremberg sammelband concerning problems of oriental philology and text exegesis, written or edited by notable Protestant scholars. - I: Early scientific work of comparative linguistics, comparing Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Ethiopian, Latin, Greek, French, etc. in great detail regarding grammar, lexicon, and phonetic inventory. Christoph Crinesius (1584-1629), an orientalist from Bohemia and "well versed in the Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Syrian languages" (cf. Jöcher), had studied and taught at Wittenberg before becoming a preacher in Gschwendt. After the Protestants' eviction from Austria he became professor of theology in Altdorf; the present work was first published in two parts in Wittenberg in 1610. - II: Collection of theological and philological disputations by Hackspan, who is considered "next to Salomon Glass the most important Hebraist of his age. He also studied the Rabbis closely and made use of the knowledge thus gained for theology. Furthermore, he was familiar with the Arabic and Syrian language" (cf. ADB X, 299). After delivering an excellent disputation, Hackspan was made professor of oriental languages at Altdorf although he held no degree. Numerous passages in Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Syrian type. - III: The first printed edition of the Sefer nizzachon, the major work of the great apologist and cabbalist Jom-Tov ben Salomo Lipmann of Mühlhausen (fl. after 1400). In this "Book of Victory", written before 1410, Lipmann attacks "central Christian teachings, especially Christian interpretations of individual Biblical passages [...] The work, which presupposes a thorough acquaintance with the New Testament, created a sensation among Christians and provoked the Brandenburg Bishop Stephan Bodecker to respond with a treatise of his own" (cf. Jüd. Lex. III, 1119). Edited by the distinguished orientalist Theodor Hackspan (1607-59), who had by a dramatic feat acquired the work theretofore existing only as a secret manuscript circulating among the Jewish community: "Hackspan visited with several students a Jew in Schnattach, with whom he had frequently spoken of the Nizzachon, but from whom he had never succeeded in obtaining it. During the visit he made the Jew so trustful that he showed him the Nizzachon, and while the students, as had been planned, ensnared the Jew in arguments and discourse, Hackspan seized his chance, got in a ready coach with the Nizzachon and left the Jew standing. As soon as he arrived at home with his booty he cut up the book, and Schnell, Blendinger, Frischmuth and other men well versed in the Rabbinic language had quickly to copy it so that one could return it to the Jew, who came for it the very next day. And through this fine deceit this evil book came into the Christians' hands and later into print" (cf. Will). The Hebrew text (constituting the major part of the work) was printed in Altdorf, the Latin text (likewise paginated from right to left) in Nuremberg. The appendix contains numerous passages in Arabic. - With autograph owner's mark "Ex libris Maresii" [probably Samuel Maresius (1599-1673, Gröningen theologian)] on flyleaf. Front pastedown with autogr. owner's mark of M. D. Winter [i. e. Magister David Winter (1643-99, Wittenberg philologist)] and ownership "Ha-Sefer jehert [A]dolf Mobring [?]"; a few underlinings in the text. Slightly browned throughout. Title-page of II (Crinesius) expertly re-margined. Occasionally slightly waterstained, otherwise a good copy of the rare major work of the cabbalist Lipmann in a contemporary sammelband. I: Jöcher I, 2198. VD 17, 14:053983L. - II: VD 17, 12:123782K. Will, Nürnb. Gelehrten-Lex. II (DBA I 452, 385). - III: Steinschneider I, 1411: 5854, 1. VD 17, 23:270299X. Will, Nürnb. Gelehrten-Lex. II (as above).
8vo. 16 pp. Uncut and untrimmed in contemporary wrappers. Only edition. This rare treatise in the form of a letter addressed to the Arabist and bibliographer Schnurrer discusses the famed sixteenth-century Venetian edition of the Qur'an in Arabic. De Rossi, the distinguished orientalist and librarian of Parma, here proves that Paganini ceased printing in 1518, at which time he was succeeded in his business by his son Alessandro. Rossi therefore places the printing of the Qur'an at 1518 or earlier, although others have proposed it could have been printed as early as 1509, which would have made Paganini's Qur'an the first book printed in Arabic. In fact, Paganino and Alessandro Paganini produced what was the first printed edition of the Qur'an in Arabic, probably intended for export to the Ottoman Empire, between 1537 and 1538. While there existed numerous contemporary reports of its existence, all physical evidence of it disappeared for centuries, and rumor had it that the Pope had the complete print run burned. The book was long even considered a bibliographical "ghost" until a single copy was rediscovered in the library of the Franciscan Friars of San Michele in Isola, Venice, by Angela Nuovo in 1987 (cf. A. Nuovo, "Il Corano arabo ritrovato", in: Bibliofilia LXXX.9 [1987], pp. 237-272, and the English translation in The Library, 6th series, 12.4 [1990], pp. 273-292). - Uncut and untrimmed as issued; a wide-margined copy of this fine Bodoni imprint in perfect condition. Brooks 1415e. Schnurrer, p. 403. OCLC 18368416.
Folio (34.5 x 24 cm). 10 pp., 100 ff. With 100 plates (143 reproductions of photographs). Publisher's original pink cloth with Arabic and German title on upper board. First and only edition of this bilingual work with 143 photographs of Middle-Eastern archeology, compiled by the well-known German archaeologist Theodor Wiegand (1864-1936). The publication was commissioned by Ahmed Djemal Pasha (Jamal Basha, 1872-22), the Ottoman military leader and Minister of the Navy, who also wrote the foreword. The plates show archaeological excavation sites in Aleppo, Amman, Baalbek, Damascus, Gerasa, Jerusalem, Palmyra, Petra, and other places. Each plate is accompanied by a separate leaf explaining the photographs, with the text in both Arabic and German. Some of the photographs are by the Swedish photographer Lewis Larsson (1881-1958), others were taken during the expedition by Otto Puchstein (1856-1911) to the capital of the ancient Hittite Empire, Hattusa, in present-day Turkey. - Only slightly browned. Spine somewhat discoloured. A very good copy. M. Greenhalgh, Constantinople to Córdoba: dismantling ancient architecture in the East, North Africa and Islamic Spain (2012), p. 478.
8vo. (16), 358, (24) pp. (including final errata leaf). Small woodcut vignette to title; woodcut intitials, head and tail pieces. Modern full calf, bound to style. First edition (variant title). - A series of ten letters written from 1639 to 1641 in which Du Loir gives his impressions of Constantinople and the Sultan's court, to which the author was privy as a member of the entourage of French ambassador Jean de La Haye. The originality of this correspondence lies also in the transliteration of several Qur'an verses (letter 5) and in providing the musical source of a Turkish song. The eighth letter includes the Ottoman text (and its French translation) of an account of the conquest of Baghdad, with a bilingual translation from Ottoman into French of the several titles of the Sultan and the other dignitaries of the court. - The author spent some eighteen months in the Levant: while he was in Turkey, Sultan Murad died and Du Loir was present at the coronation of Sultan Ibrahim. He returned to Venice in 1641 after passing through the Morea; the first and the last of the letters give some account of mainland Greece and the islands. "Cet ouvrage, écrit avec conscience, contient sur les moeurs orientales de l'époque des documents utiles pour l'histoire de la Turquie" (NBG XV, 138). - This is the rarer (and probably earlier) variant edition, mentioned in Blackmer, with a different subtitle (instead of "contenu ... sujets"). - Contemporary ownership ("G. Carius") to title; latterly in the collection of the American dietician and professor of medicine Edward E. Cornwall (b. 1866; his ownership signature to the front free endpaper), previously inscribed to N. O. Cornwall "with a merry Christmas". Insignificant browning, but a good copy. Uncommon on the market. BM French (17th) D1038. Aboussouan 286. Cf. Atabey 373f. Blackmer 511. Weber II, 299. OCLC 43056926.
Folio (ca. 232 x 356 mm). Report 166 pp.; appendix 167-1002 pp. [With:] Glossary to the Fifth Report. Ordered to be printed 12th March 1830. IV, 5-50 pp. Modern half calf over marbled boards. Massive report detailing the revenue and judicial systems in British India from the 18th century onwards. It is accompanied by Charles Wilkins's important (and mostly missing) Glossary, an early attempt to systematize the etymologically complex terminology of Anglo-Indian rule. - The Fifth Report also led to the Charter Act of 1813, which compelled the East India Company to let missionaries preach to the masses in India. Previously, the Company had discouraged missionary work in the country, fearing that they might incite religious sentiments which would affect the Company's business policy and diplomatic role. - The Glossary aimed to demystify the myriad of Anglo-Indian terms used in the Report. In the Preface, the editor states: "The numerous oriental terms used in the Fifth Report and its Appendix have been adopted from most of the languages current throughout India: - from Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, Hindustany, Bengaly, Telinga, Tamul, Canara and Malabar; and a few from Turkish and Malay [...]". It was issued separately from the Fifth Report and was very quickly sold out. This is the second edition dated 1830. Yule and Burnell note this in their "Hobson Jobson" of 1886 as the edition used. - Removed from London's Inner Temple Library with their stamps and bookplate.
8vo. (8), 216 pp. With 13 genealogical tables printed on 12 folding plates. Contemporary marbled boards. Rare first edition of this corpus of sources on ancient Arabic history. With extensive passages in Arabic, largely presenting excerpts from the historical works of Ibn Qutaybah, the renowned Islamic scholar of Persian origin (cf. GAL I, 120ff.). He served as a judge during the Abbasid Caliphate, but was best known for his contributions to Arabic literature. - Binding rubbed and bumped at extremeties. Some brownstaining throughout (more pronounced in title page). From the collection of the Lower Saxon educator and rector Friedrich Hülsemann (1771-1835) with his ownership to front pastedown (dated 31 July 1799); later in the library of the Badenian rabbi Levi Bodenheimer (1807-67; his ownership on flyleaf; Hebrew pencil note on rear pastedown). Last in the collection of the German zoologists Barbara and Ragnar Kinzelbach (their bookplate). Macro 888 ("8 volumes" in error for "8vo"). Schnurrer 160f. Fück I, 768. NYPL Arabia Coll. 23. Aboussouan 304 & 833. Cf. NDB IV, 377. Not in Smitskamp.
8vo. X, 82 pp. Wrappers. First edition of this exceptionally rare study in historical economics, exploring the ancient trade routes to East India and Arabia in pre-Muhammadian times, citing many Greek sources. The linguist J. G. Eichhorn (1752-1827) was professor of oriental languages at Göttingen, where he also taught political history and literary history. - A very clean, well-preserved copy: contemporary note of acquisition on title page; two typographical errors noted on the errata page have been corrected by the owner. Kress 7102. Roscher 913. ADB V, 731. OCLC 65352288.
Engraved broadside with letterpress title and text. Ca. 430 x 550 mm. Rare, unrecorded broadside showing the family tree of the reigning sultan of Turkey Amurath III (1548-95) and his eleven ancestors, thus covering 12 generations beginning with sultan Osman I (1259-1326). Two shields display the Sultan’s coat of arms and attributes (turban, sword, bow and arrows, rife and tools). Each sultan has his own engraved portrait; letterpress title above and two columns of letterpress text at the sides: information about the sultans to the left, and information about their brothers (29 in all) at the right. The Austrian scholar Michael Eyzinger (Baron Aitzing, ca. 1530-98) wrote several pamphlets on contemporary historical events, parts of which were published by Gottfried van Kempen (cf. Göllner 1594). He is considered a pioneer of newspaper journalism, as well as of genealogy. - Restored copy; formerly mounted with vague gluestains on verso, skilfully remargined and 2 large repaired horizontal tears (slight loss of image and text).
647, (1) pp. 197, (1) pp. With title-page printed in red and black, 5 (of 6) large folding letterpress tables, 1 double-page engraved folding plate with 2 engraved illustrations, and some woodcut illustrations and numerous letterpress geomantic figures in text. With (2): Tabulae geomanticae, seu liber singularis de tribus ultimis ex antiquo manuscripto de anno MDXXXV. Iam primo luci datus, annexis duabus tabellis huic studio mirè inservientibus, caeteroquin utilibus & jucundis. Frankfurt am Main, Johann David Zunner, 1693. With 2 letterpress folding tables following text, and nearly 200 pages of letterpress tables with geomantic figures. 2 works in 1 volume, bound in reverse order. 8vo. Contemporary vellum. First edition of a collection of three texts on geomancy, a divination system with Arabian origins. Geomancy comes from the Ancient Greek "geômanteía", a translation of the Arabic term "'ilm al-raml", the "science of the sand". It includes texts by the English physician and astrologer Robert Fludd (1574-1637), the French physician Henri de Pisis and the Arab Alfakini. It is preceded by its separately published supplement Tabulae geomanticae, together forming "the standard printed Latin source for the rules of geomantic practice [...] a handbook and compendium not since rivalled for clarity and completeness" (Skinner). - Fludd's treatise "De Animae intellectualis Scientia seu geomantia" was first published in his magnum opus "Utriusque Cosmi maioris salicet et minoris metaphysica" (1617-19), and appeared slightly altered in the present work. "Fludd [...] tried to present [geomancy] as a science of intellectual soul in which intellectual rays emanated from the mind to mundane affairs and then returned to the center with tidings of the future [...] He discusses how the geomancer should so dispose himself that the intentions of his mind are clearly emitted [...] Fludd's treatise is immediately followed by a longer geomancy by H. de Pisis [first published in 1638]. The work is divided into three parts devoted respectively to the theory, practice and questions taken from previous authors. The theory is largely astrological. Instead of jotting down four rows of dots at random, a wheel with sixteen projections is spun or whirled in order to obtain one of the sixteen geomantic figures. Fludd is cited more than once, also Arabic authors like Geber and Aomar" (Thorndike). The last treatise contains the geomantic questions of the Arab Alfakini, son of Abizarch, based on a manuscript from 1535 and published here for the first time. The manuscript was a Latin translation by Plato of Tivoli (fl. first half of the 12th century), known for his translations of Arabic texts. A supplement to this last text, containing almost 200 pages of tables, is bound first. It opens with a series of 25 numbered questions, the answers to these questions can be found in the tables of the matching geomantic figure. - With a crude drawing of a head on pastedown. Lacking one letterpress folding table in the main work. Browned throughout, as usual, some occasional smudges, a few tears along the folds of the folding tables, and some wormholes in the first two leaves, resulting in a small hole in the gutter of the title-page, otherwise internally still good. Binding soiled and with crudely restored spine. VD 17, 7:692678X & 39:120436C. Caillet 4035. Thorndike VIII, 481f. S. Skinner, Terrestrial Astrology: Divination by Geomancy (1980).
4to. 120 (instead of 124), 164, 92 pp. Ottoman Turkish in Arabic type. Contemporary blindstamped full calf with fore-edge flap. First edition. - A miscellancy of the two principal works of the classical Turkish Mevlevi poet known as Sheikh Galib. As merely 506 copies were published, it can be considered the rarest divan book produced by the Bulaq printing house, the first official and governmental printing press in Egypt, founded in 1820. The "Divan" reflects Galib's preoccupation with mystical religious themes, his poems being characterized by highly symbolic language, complex conceits and wordplay, while his magnum opus, the allegorical mathnawi "Hüsn ü Ask" ("Beauty and Love"), consists of 2101 verses with a strong Sufi theme. It tells the tale of two lovers, Hüsn and Ask, and the tribulations imposed on Ask by the elders of their clan, in order to be granted Hüsn's hand in marriage. All names used in the story, including those of characters and places, are Sufi terms. The story is ripe with symbolism and is meant to be taken not literally but for its symbolic meaning: man's journey towards God. - Wants bifolium 10 (pp. 37-40) of the Divan. Vertical crack to spine, heavily rubbed at lower edge, binding loosened in places. Internally well preserved. - A pioneering work of symbolism in Turkish literature. Özege 4233. Bulaq, The Checklist 47. BM 14472, e.29. Cairo FKT 143. DornCO 196. Bulaq MK 9,9. Bianchi CG 49. Ridwan 467.
320 x 260 mm. 24 issues bound as one. With one map. Housed in contemporary Brinco binder. A rare and complete run of the Gulf Bird Watchers' Newsletter, a record of bird-watching in Bahrain and other Arabian Gulf states. The newsletter was put together by Michael Gallagher, who also authored "The Birds of Oman" (1980), as a way for largely English-speaking inhabitants of the Gulf States to compare sightings, exchange tips and aid with transport, and to provide a resource for bird watchers across the region. - The newsletter started out as meeting minutes from a group of eighteen bird watchers, but encouraged reader submissions. Birders submit recent reports of sightings, along with questions: "Caspian Terns [...] Do they breed nearby?" and lists of birding books purchased en masse from England and available for a small fee. Much focus is on the birds of Bahrain in particular, with reports of Reef Herons, curlews, black headed gulls, and cormorants near Sharjah and of various doves in the desert. Rare sightings receive particular attention: a Great Gray Shrike is seen "near Sar" on 4 July 1969, and a Water Rail, "the first since Spring 1967, was identified in the Janabya reed beds". With numerous lists of sightings, queries, and advice on how to preserve dead specimens. In later years a Sea Bird Report is added due to popular demand, and reports on sightings in the Gulf itself ("Phalaropes: These attractive birds are back again in the Gulf of Oman"). Complimenting the sea reports is a map titled "Sketch Map to Accompany Summary of the Bird Sightings of Captain Chilman During 1967, 1968 & 1969", illustrating the tanker routes through the Gulf from which these observations take place, and carefully noting a curious "NO BIRDS AREA" in the midst of the Gulf. - Altogether, a complete and engaging record of birding in Bahrain and surroundings. Well preserved. OCLC 18723858.
Folio (266 x 365 mm). VI, III-XX, 38 pp. With two frontispieces and 21 plates (the frontispiece and 10 out of 11 plates present in two states, both coloured and as sepia mezzotints). - (Bound with:) Annals of Horsemanship. Containing Accounts of Accidental Experiments, and Experimental Accidents Both Successful and Unsuccessful [...]. London, for W. Dickinson, S. Hooper, J. Archer, and R. White, 1791. XVII, (1), 81, (1) pp. With 15 stipple-engraved plates. 19th-century red three-quarters morocco with gilt spine. Marbled endpapers. First editions of Gambano's droll classics on horsemanship featuring H. W. Bunbury's humorous caricatures: a luxury copy with the rare hand-coloured plates included with the first work. "Geoffrey Gambado" has sometimes been identified with the illustrator, but is also said to have been Francis Grose, compiler of "A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue" (cf. Riely, "Horace Walpole and 'the Second Hogarth'", in: ECS 9/1 [1975]). In addition to his works on antiquities, satiric essays, and volumes on non-standard words and meanings, Grose (1731-91) wrote "Rules for Drawing Caricaturas: with an Essay on Comic Painting" (1788), and the frontispiece portrait of "Gambado" in the "Academy" bears an uncanny resemblance to Grose, a "stocky, corpulent figure which Grose himself caricatured" (DNB). - The stipple-engraved plates were designed by H. W. Bunbury (1750-1811), whom "Walpole enthusiastically compared [...] to Hogarth. He was the friend of Goldsmith, Garrick, and Reynolds, and the favourite of the Duke and Duchess of York, to whom in 1787 he was appointed equerry. All this, coupled with the facts that he was seldom, if ever, personal, and wholly abstained from political subjects, greatly aided his popularity with the printsellers and the public of his day, and secured his admission, as an honorary exhibitor, to the walls of the Academy, where between 1780 and 1808 his works frequently appeared [... They] are not without a good deal of grotesque drollery of the rough-and-ready kind in vogue towards the end of the last century - that is to say, drollery depending in a great measure for its laughable qualities upon absurd contrasts, ludicrous distortions, horseplay, and personal misadventure" (DNB). - "The Annals of Horsemanship" were later "published with and generally bound with" the "Academy", though always "with a separate title page" (Huth). The "Academy" seemingly wants fol. B1 of the preliminary matter, but was apparently issued that way: as the ESTC notes, "Possibly deliberately mis-signed in order to support the 'missing' portion of the author's preface - see editor's note". - Some browning and brownstaining; occasional edge tears repaired (including a largish fault to fol. M2, the edges of which are more severely frayed). From the library of the late Robert Lionel Foster, Esq. (British Justice of the Peace, d. 1952; his bookplate on front pastedown). Huth p. 52. Lowndes p. 860. Brunet II, 1474 ("singulier ouvrage"). Graesse III, 22.
Large 4to (220 x 261 mm). (4), VIII, 264, (2) pp. Contemporary half calf with giltstamped red spine label and sparsely gilt spine. Edges lightly sprinkled in red. Only edition. - Pioneering specimen of a catalogue of oriental manuscripts in the Leiden library, with extensive extracts in Arabic, produced by H. A. Hamaker (1789-1835). "Ce spécimen ne contient que douze articles" (Brunet). "The descriptions of a mere twelve items on 238 pages illustrate the diligence with which the author attends to each and every title. Indeed, the final MS, the 'Qamus al-Muhit' of Firuzabadi, is discussed on no fewer than 60 pages. Each author is provided with extensive biographical excerpts with Latin translations, to which are added extremely detailed discussions of scholarly literature. Had Hamaker kept up this method for all the oriental MSS in Leiden, estimated at a number of some ten thousand, he should have wanted about 25,000 pages, not to mention hundreds of pages of indices. It is thus questionable whether Hamaker intended more with his 'Specimen' than to provide an example of an ideality which was to promote his planned catalogue [...]. And yet, had he been able to realize this ideal with the help of other scholars, this would have given to the world a source-based work of reference which would have preserved its value to this day, not superseded either by Brockelmann's 'Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur' nor by Sezgin's 'Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums'" (cf. B. Liebrenz, Arabische, persische und türkische Handschriften in Leipzig [Leipzig 2008], p. 73). - Some creases to paper; binding rubbed and chafed in places. A good copy from the library of the Dutch theologian Christiaan Jacobus van der Vlis (1813-42) with his handwritten ownership on the front pastedown. Besterman 4352. Brunet III, 26f. & VI, 31385. Cf. Fück 181 (for Hamaker).
