Télémaque

Good Armenian Full modern leather binding. An ex-library stamp on the colophon. Small 4to. (27 x 18 cm). In Armenian. 512, [8] p., engraved plates. Richly illustrated. Stains on pages and edges. Otherwise a good copy. Extremely rare first Armenian edition of Fenelon's "Telemaque". According to Abdolonyme Ubicini's account in his La Turquie actuelle (Paris 1855), Les Aventures de Télémaque was the most popular classic among Levantines in Istanbul in the first half of the 19th century, and it was translated into many languages besides Turkish and Arabic in the Ottoman Empire. The first printed version of a Greek translation dates from the 18th century, while an Armenian version by Ambroise Calfa was published in Paris in 1860. (The Ottoman Reception of Fénelon's Télémaque.; Meral, Arzu). The translator, Ambroise Calfa Nar Bey, Guy de Lusignan, (1831-1906), was a Franco-Armenian historian and linguist from the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Ambroise Calfa is one of the three sons of Kévork (Georges) -Youssouf Calfa, an Armenian trader living in Constantinople, and Sophie Cantar (or Kantaroglou), daughter of an Armenian merchant or banker from the Ottoman capital. Member of several learned societies, including the Asian Society, Ambroise Calfa published several historical or linguistic works, including an Armenian Calligraphy (Paris, 1853), a work awarded at the Universal Exhibition of 1855, and, above all, an Armenian-French Dictionary ( Paris, Hachette, 1861) dedicated to Emperor Alexander II. (Wikipedia). Les Aventures de Télémaque, fils d'Ulysse (The adventures of Telemachus, son of Ulisses) with the original title is a didactic French novel by Fénelon, Archbishop of Cambrai, who in 1689 became tutor to the seven-year-old Duc de Bourgogne (grandson of Louis XIV and second in line to the throne). It was published anonymously in 1699 and reissued in 1717 by his family. The slender plot fills out a gap in Homer's Odyssey, recounting the educational travels of Telemachus, son of Ulysses, accompanied by his tutor, Mentor, who is revealed at the end of the story to be Minerva, goddess of wisdom, in disguise. OCLC 953068302 (One institutional copy in BnF). (Utopias from the Middle East 3).