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[Alf layla wa-layla - Qissat as-Sindbad al-bahri]. Langlès, L[ouis] (ed.).
[Qissat al-Sindibad al-Bahri fi sab` safaratihi fi al-barr wa-al-bahr al-Hindi-Kayd al-nisa]. Les voyages de Sind-Bâd Le Marin, et la ruse des femmes. Contes arabes. Traduction litterale, accompagnée du texte et de notes. Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1814.
12mo. XXX, 161, 113 pp. Contemporary half calf with title to giltstamped spine and marbled boards. Endpapers and edges marbled. First edition of "Sind-Bâd" and the first independent printing of any part of the Arabian Nights in Arabic. Although traditionally included in the corpus of the Thousand and One Nights (Alf Layla wa Layla) as told by Scheherazade, it is thought that the series of stories that make up the voyages of Sindbad have older and separate origins, incorporating elements of Homer, Panchatantra, other Persian, Arab and Indian literary material as well as historical material relating to trade and navigation. Set traditionally during the reign of Haroun al-Rashid, Sindbad undertakes seven voyages from Basra, each leading one to the other, encounters fabulous creatures, faces exhaustive ordeals and amasses fabulous wealth. The publisher of the present edition, Louis-Mathieu Langlès (1763-1824), an important figure in the study of Middle-Eastern and Oriental languages and literature, was a correspondent of William Jones in Calcutta, co-founder of the École des Langues Orientales Vivantes in Paris, and the keeper of the Indian manuscript department in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. "Un ouvrage classique, et d'une certaine importance sous le point de vue scientifique, historique ou littéraire" (preface). Chauvin VII, p. 2. Brunet III, 820. OCLC 4433261.
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Ali-Garadi, Ahmed Ibn Muhammad / Mittwoch, Eugen (transl.)
Aus dem Jemen. Hermann Burchardts letzte Reise durch Südarabien. Bearbeitet von Eugen Mittwoch [...]. Leipzig, Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft in Kommission bei F.A. Brockhaus, [1926].
4to. (4), 74 pp. With 28 plates with 55 black-and-white photographic prints, as well as 1 plan of Burchhardt's itinerary on page 9. Original printed wrappers. First edition. Rare travelogue of Yemen, enriched with striking photographs. In Arabic and German parallel text. Prepared by Ahmed ibn Muhammad al-Garadi, the secretary, Arabic teacher and companion of the German explorer Hermann Burchardt (1857-1909), the book describes Burchardt's travels in the south of the Arabian Peninsula, where he was ambushed and killed by gunmen in December 1909. Containing "important ethnographical information on crafts and the Jewish population", the account also boasts a wealth of photographs "of great documentary value" (Speake), including city views and landmarks of Sanaa, Taizz, and Mocha, such as tower houses in Sanaa's old town, the Ashrafiya Mosque, the Grand Mosque in Mocha, and the ruined palace of Sultan Hasan, as well as pictures of local children, a group of Jews studying scripture in the synagogue, several men sitting around a water pipe, bedouins, farmers, and workers. The images impressively portray the destitution of the Yemenite population in the early 20th century. - In addition, the work includes annotations to the text of the travelogue, a list of examples of the Sanaa idiom, and an index prepared by the German orientalist Eugen Mittwoch, who also translated the Arabic text. Published as a festschrift for the Vierter Deutscher Orientalistentag in Hamburg. - A few edge flaws to wrappers professionally repaired. Lower right corner of first two leaves chipped, but interior very well preserved in general. Never seen at auction. Speake, Literature of Travel and Exploration III, 1305. OCLC 907363736.
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American Women's League of Kuwait.
Kuwait Yellow Pages Directory. [Kuwait], National Printing Press, 1976.
Small 8vo. III, 53 pp., printed on rectos only. With 3 plans of Kuwait in the text and one folding plan of Kuwait and its suburbs. Original printed wrappers. Exceedingly rare yellow pages for Kuwait, compiled for English speakers by the American Women's League in Kuwait, founded in 1963, presumably in its first edition. - Includes references for air conditioning repair, art galleries, car rental and sales, barbers and hairdressers, embassies and consulates, exterminators, oil companies, tennis schools, and "oriental handicrafts". The plans show the commercial center of Kuwait, Fahd Al-Salem Street, and the Salmiyah quarter. The folding plan indicates the location of hospitals, English, American and French schools, Kuwait University, the National Evangelical Church and the Holy Family Cathedral, as well as important hotels and hunting, sporting and sea clubs. - Binding a little brownstained; lower cover showing some waterstaining. A small spot to the folding plan. In all a very well preserved copy of an otherwise unobtainable publication.
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[Beckford, William].
[Vathek.] An Arabian Tale, From an Unpublished Manuscript: With Notes Critical and Explanatory. London, for J. Johnson, 1786.
8vo. VII, (1), 334 pp., final blank leaf (p. 48 misnumbered "84"). With woodcut illustrations on p. 316 (X6v, showing ostrich and peacock-feather fans). Sumptuous 19th century red grained morocco binding, spine gilt, gilt cover rules and inner dentelle, leading edges gilt. All edges gilt. The unauthorized first edition, first issue (with misnumbered page 48). This original edition, claiming to be translated directly from Arabic, appeared without the name of the author, also omitting from the title the name under which the work would later be known internationally. - Although often classified as an early Gothic novel, "Vathek" is more truly an oriental tale, describing the experience and rewards of succumbing to temptation, and closely reflecting the "foolish, fantastic, egotistical life" of the author who began writing the story in French in January 1782. Despite the fact that Samuel Henley's translation, and the elaborate notes which he provided for the book, were undertaken with his friend Beckford's approval, its publication was contrary to the author's express wishes: Beckford had clearly intended to bring out the French edition first, but his wife had died in Switzerland on 18 May 1786, and though the book was published by Joseph Johnson on 7 June, he was still unaware of its existence by late August. Copies were priced at 4 shillings or 7s. 6d. on large paper, and have the running title of "The History of the Caliph Vathek". Even though Beckford published French editions in Lausanne (December 1786, dated "1787") and Paris (1787), the novel only became well known some thirty years later when Byron declared it to be his Bible. - Provenance: From the library of John Bigham, 1st Viscount Mersey (1840-1929), at Bignor Park, Sussex (his bookplate to front pastedown and ink ownership to flyleaf). Subsequently in the library of the American publisher and collector A(lfred) Edward Newton (1864-1940), whose collection was auctioned by Parke-Bernet in 1941 (bookplate). Later acquired by the American lawyer and collector Robert S. Pirie (1934-2015), a prominent member of the Grolier Club, whose library was dispersed by Sotheby's in December 2015 (his bookplate to front flyleaf). - With the final blank Y8, which is often absent. Occasional light brownstains, but in all an excellent copy, beautifully bound and with fine provenance. ESTC T62055. Rothschild 352. G. Chapman, Bibliography of William Beckford, pp. 22f, i. Summers 543. Garside/Raven/Schöwerling 1786:15. OCLC 1636740.
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Bellin, Jacques Nicolas.
Plan de la ville de Moka située sur la Mer Rouge. [Paris, 1764].
Engraved map, hand coloured. 330 x 253 mm. Finely engraved map of Mocha, Yemen, from Jacques Nicolas Bellin's "Le Petit Atlas Maritime Recueil de Cartes et Plans des Quatre Parlies du Monde en Cinq Volumes", first published in Paris in 1764. - Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1703-72) was among the most important mapmakers of the 18th century. In 1721, at age 18, he was appointed hydrographer (chief cartographer) to the French Navy. In August 1741, he became the first Ingénieur de la Marine of the Depot des cartes et plans de la Marine (the French Hydrographic Office) and was named Official Hydrographer of the French King. - During his term as Official Hydrographer, the Depot was the single most active center for the production of sea charts and maps, including a large folio format sea-chart of France, the Neptune Francois. He also produced a number of sea-atlases of the world, e.g., the Atlas Maritime and the Hydrographie Francaise. These gained fame, distinction, and respect all over Europe and were republished throughout the 18th and even in the succeeding century. - Bellin also came out with smaller format maps such as the 1764 Petit Atlas Maritime, containing 580 finely detailed charts. He also contributed many of the maps for Bellin and contributed a number of maps to the 15-volume Histoire Generale des Voyages of Antoine François Prévost, or simply known l'Abbe Prevost. - Bellin set a very high standard of workmanship and accuracy, thus gaining for France a leading role in European cartography and geography. Many of his maps were copied by other mapmakers of Europe.
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Bertrand, Henri-Gatien.
Guerre d'Orient. Campagnes d'Egypte et de Syrie 1798-1799. Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de Napoléon [...]. Paris, au Comptoir des Imprimeurs-unis, 1847.
Large 8vo and folio (290 x 442 mm). 3 volumes. (4), LV, 406, (2) pp. (4), 355, (1) pp. Vol. 3 (atlas): title-page, index, and 18 double-sided engraved maps (ca. 45 x 31,5 cm neatline). Contemporary half calf with gilt title to spine and giltstamped morocco label to upper cover of the atlas, identifying the volumes as a gift from Bertrand's son. Original wrappers bound within. Marbled endpapers. First and only edition of Napoleon's memoirs of his French campaign in Egypt and Syria as dictated to his general and grand maréchal du palais, Henri-Gatien Bertrand (1773-1844), during his exile in St. Helena (1815-21). Bertrand was the only one of Napoleon's loyal companions in exile to have participated in the Egyptian campaign, which explains his choice of subject. - The two volumes of text present an ample, if subjective account of the famous military campaigns, enriched with transcripts of numerous official documents and letters relating to the events described. The beautiful atlas, engraved by Alexandre Moisy (1763-1827), presents 18 partly hand-coloured maps that are mostly in direct connection with the campaign. Including a general map of the south-eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea, a map of the Mediterranean with the movements of the French and British fleets, a map of Egypt, a map of Syria and the Middle East, maps of the invasion of Malta, the Battle of the Nile, the Battle of the Pyramids, the Siege of Acre (with an engraved veduta of the city), the Battle of Mount Tabor, and the Battle of Aboukir. Four maps of parts of Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands represent additional theatres of the War of the Second Coalition in 1799. - Bertrand's "Guerre d'Orient" was published 26 years after Napoleon's death in exile and three years after Bertrand's own passing, on the initiative of his son, general Henri-Alexandre-Arthur Bertrand, who gifted the copy at hand to its first owner, as indicated by the morocco cover label on the atlas. - Lower right corner of the atlas slightly bumped, occasional minor foxing and browning in all volumes. Atlas with several minor tears (not affecting the maps) and occasional marks and scribbles in ink, ballpoint, and crayon.
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Birgili, Muhammad Ben Pir-Ali / Garcin de Tassy, Joseph Héliodore (ed.).
[Vasiyetname - French]. Exposition de la foi musulmane [...]. Paris, G. Dufour & E. d'Ocagne, 1822.
8vo. (6), X, 166 pp. Contemporary full calf with giltstamped spine and giltstamped spine-label. All edges marbled. Marbled endpapers. First edition. French translation of the "Vasiyetname", the Turkish catechism by the Hanafi Maturidi scholar and moralist Imam Birgivi (1522-73), who lived during the height of the Ottoman Empire. Edited by the French orientalist Garcin de Tassy (1794-1878). Invoking honesty, devotion, unity and fraternity, the "Vasiyetname" was directed at the common people, and was therefore written in Kaba Türkçe, a simpler, vulgar version of Ottoman Turkish used by unskilled workers and farmers. - Apart from the Muslim catechism, the present volume includes a translation of the "Pend-Namèh" by Saadi Shiraazi by the same editor, and a translation of the poem "Al-Burda" by Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy (1758-1838), as well as two fairy tales from the "Anwari Soheili", the famous collection of folk tales by Bidpai ("The Falconer" and "The Bear and the Gardener"). - Binding somewhat rubbed; lightly bumped at extremities; hinges starting. A few pencil underlinings. Small portion of lower right corner of title-page torn off; tiny marginal tear to p. 33f. Traces of two removed paperclips and some ink dashes to half-title. Decorative contemporary bookplate in Arabic to front pastedown. Shelfmark stamped to half-title. Two red square stamps to title-page, another to first page of the preface and first page of the "Exposition". OCLC 165361693.
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[Camels].
Uncle Joseph's Pretty Stories About the Camel. New York, J. Q. Preble, [ca. 1840s].
Large 8vo. 8 ff. (including original illustrated wrappers; 6 leaves printed on one side only). With 8 hand-coloured woodcut illustrations and a woodcut cover illustration. Sewn with cloth spine. Scarce children's book about the various types of camels, their habits and uses, issued within the series of "Uncle Joseph's Pretty Stories". Includes pictures of a Bedouin camp, a desert caravan, the Holy Camel bearing the Qur'an on the pilgrimage to Mecca, a camel fight, and a two-humped camel exhibited on the streets of London. - Numerous repaired tears, some chipping to wrappers with slight loss to title. Rare; OCLC lists a single holding library (University of Chicago). OCLC 41203190.
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Galland, Antoine (ed.).
Les paroles remarquables, les bons mots et les maximes des Orientaux. Traduction de leurs ouvrages en Arabe, en Persan & en Turc, avec des remarques. Paris, Simon Benard & Michel Brunet, 1694.
8vo (98 x 160 mm). (18), 356, (28) pp. - (Bound after) II: Theophrastus / La Bruyère, Jean de (transl.). Les caracteres de Theophraste traduits du grec: avec les caracteres ou les moeurs de ce siecle. Sixième edition. Paris, Estienne Michallet, 1691. (32), 587, (5) pp. 18th century full calf with gilt supralibros of Louis-Robert-Hippolyte Bréhant de Plélo on both covers. Spine on five raised bands; compartments show gilt armorial crest. Marbled endpapers. Leading edges gilt. All edges red. Original edition of the first book published by the French orientalist Antoine Galland (1646-1715), soon to be famous for his influential translation of Alf Layla wa-Layla. "Galland, professor of Arabic at the Collège de France since 1709, had made three journeys to Turkey, the Levant and Palestine, and approached the Orient without prejudice and with an open mind. Following the example of Plutarch's Apophthegmata and the anecdote collections of Valerius Maximus, he set about collecting from Arabic, Persian, and Turkish works, such as the chronicles of Makin, of Bar Hebraeus, of Mirchond, from the Matla' us-sa'dain of Abdarrazzaq, from the Tag ut-tavarikh of Hodsha Effendi, from Sa'adi's Gulistan, from Latifi and other sources, remarkable sayings to show his readers that the orientals did not rank behind the West for wit, powers of observation, and pithiness of expression. To these he appended maxims taken from the collections of sayings published by Erpenius and Golius" (cf. Fück). Although a reissue appeared at Den Haag the same year, the work is very rare; Fück reports that he knows it only from the reprinted text in the supplement to d'Herbelot's Bibliothèque orientale (1780). - Bound first is the sixth edition of La Bruyère's Theophrastus translation, containing 77 new characters, including Le distrait, Onuphre, the portraits of La Fontaine, Jean de Santeul, and others. - Provenance: from the library of the French diplomat and military officer Louis-Robert-Hippolyte Brehant de Plélo (1699-1734), bound for him with his arms stamped in gilt to both covers (OHR, 1715, fer no. 1). Brehant de Plélo married Louise-Françoise Phélipeaux de la Vrilliere, daughter of a secretary of state of Louis XV. He fell during the siege of Danzig on 27 May 1734. Latterly in the collection of the French industrialist and patron Pierre Bergé (1930-2017); acquired from the sale of his estate. I: Chauvin I, 81A. Tchemerzine-Scheler III, 802. Brunet III, 720. Fück 101. OCLC 14147406. - II: OCLC 32361379.
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Heynes, Edward.
Scheeps-togt van Mr. Edward Heynes, van Surate na Mocha, gedaan in het jaar 1618. Verhalende, op wat wijse de Engelsse de Koopmanschap, met de inwoonders, aldaar hebben opgerigt, en door schriftelijke verseekeringen (van den Bassa gegeeven) vast-gestelt. Als mede een beschrijving van de stad Mocha, des selfs huysingen, bolwerken en haven-plaats. Nu alder-eerst uyt het Engels vertaald. Met noodig Register verrijkt. Leiden, Pieter van der Aa, [ca. 1707].
Folio (254 x 400 mm). (1) f., 14 cols., (1) p. (= 5 ff. in all). Modern blue-grey paper covers. First Dutch edition. Edward Heynes' account of the first successful attempt of the British (the third altogether) at establishing trading privileges with Mocha and a commercial presence there, previously published in English within the first volume of Samuel Purchas' collection "Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas his Pilgrimes" (1625). - The ship "Anne Royall", captained by Andrew Shilling, sailed in April 1618 up the Red Sea and visited Mocha from April 11 till August 20. Heynes, secretary to Sir Thomas Roe, gives an extensive account of the reception by the governor of Mocha, customs of the population, and prospects of commerce. "[The] British delegation lands, and presents the governor with six yards of broadcloth stammell, six yards of green material, a shotgun and mirror. It is striking that the British respond to their hosts' food gifts with gifts of technology. This form of reciprocity sends a message of power, for not only does it reflect the greater sophistication of their economy, it also implies that the Yemenites are no match militarily" (Malkiel, p. 10). Includes a short account of a trip made by Heynes' fellow-merchant Joseph Salbank to Sinan. - Published as part 18 of the series "Wijd-beroemde Voyagien na Oost- en West-Indiën, gedaan door de Engelschen", with a detailed index. Slight foxing throughout, but on the whole well preserved. Tiele 8. Cf. David Malkiel, Strangers in Yemen (Berlin/Boston 2021), p. 9-11. Not in Henze, Howgego, Cox etc.
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Ibn al-Haytham, Abu 'Ali al-Hasan (Alhazen).
[Kitab al-Manazir, latine]. Opticae thesaurus. Alhazeni Arabis libri septem, nunc primum editi. Eiusdem liber de crepusculis & Nubium ascensionibus. Item Vitellonis Thuringopoloni libri X [...]. (Ed. F. Risner). Basel, Eusebius Episcopius & haeredes Nicolai Episcopii, (August) 1572.
Folio (235 x 338 mm). 2 parts in 1 vol. (6) pp., 1 blank leaf, 288 pp. (8), 474, (2) pp. With 2 different woodcut printer's devices on title-page and colophon, half-page woodcut on reverse of title-page (repeated on half-title of pt. 2), and numerous diagrams in the text. Contemporary full limp vellum binding with later ink spine label (wants ties). First edition of "the most important work of its kind in Arabic literature" (cf. Poggendorf), this copy inscribed by the German humanist Wilhelm Xylander (1532-76), sometime rector of Heidelberg University. - Ibn al-Haytham (965-c. 1040), known as Alhazen in the Western tradition, has been hailed as "the greatest Muslim physicist and one of the greatest students of optics of all times [...] The Latin translation [...] exerted a great influence upon Western science. It showed a great progress in experimental method. [Alhazen's book contains] research in catoptrics, [a] study of atmospheric refraction, [a] better description of the eye, and better understanding of vision [as well as an] attempt to explain binocular vision [and the] earliest use of the camera obscura" (Sarton). "This combined edition served as the standard reference work on optics well into the 17th century, influencing scientists such as Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, and Descartes" (Norman). - "The Arab physicist Alhazen preserved for us all that was known by the ancients in the field of optics and added some contributions of his own. His book remained a standard authority thru the 1600s. He understood that light emanated spherically from a point and greatly improved on Ptolemy's uncertain rule for refraction which, he showed, held true only for small angles. He covered many cases of reflection and refraction and his explanation of the structure and function of the eye was followed for 600 years" (Dibner). - The 'Liber de crepusculis', the work on dawn and twilight included in Risner's 'Opticae thesaurus' and attributed to Alhazen, is actually the work of his contemporary Abu 'Abdallah Muhammad ibn Mu'adh al-Jayyani (cf. Norman; DSB, p. 208). The optical study by the Polish scholar Witelo, likewise here included, is "a massive work that relies extensively on Alhazen [and] offers an analysis of reflection that was not surpassed until the 17th century" (Norman). - Binding stained; edges worn. Interior browned with some waterstaining throughout the margins; occasional edge defects. Inscribed on the title-page by Wilhelm Xylander, professor of Greek and Logic at Heidelberg and editor of numerous translations from Greek (cf. ADB XLIV, 582-593): "Xylandri dono Antonius Roverius Nemausensis possidet" (followed by a Greek dedication and Xylander's signature). The recipient Antonius Roverius (Antoine Rouvier) from Nîmes had matriculated at Heidelberg on 1 July 1572. - Later in the library of the famed microscope builder and collector Alfred Nachet (1831-1908) and his son Albert. - An appealing copy of a principal work of Arabic science as received in the West with important provenance. VD 16, H 693 (H 692, V 1761). Adams A 745. BM-STC 383. Dibner 138. Norman 1027. Honeyman I, 73. DSB VI, 205 & XIV, 461. GAL I, 470. Poggendorf I, 31. Duncan 113. Sarton I, 721. Carmody p. 140. Thorndike/Kibre 803, 1208. Vagnetti D62. BNHCat A 241. IA 103.705. Brunet I, 180. Arabick Roots Doha AR79. Collection Nachet (1929), 50 (this copy).
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Jawhari, Isma'il ibn Hammad / Muhammad al-Wani (ed.).
[Sihah al-Jawhari - Turkish: Kitab-i Lughat-i Vanqulu]. Constantinople (Istanbul), Dar üt-tibaat ül-cedidat ül-mamure (New Government Printing House), [1802-1803 CE =] 1217-1218 H.
Folio (210 x 310 mm). 2 vols. (5), 650 pp. (2), 764 pp. Text printed within rules, typographic headpieces. Contemporary Islamic brown goatskin with fore-edge flap, boards stamped in silver ornamental borders and central arabesque, flap with ornamental rule. Uncommon second edition of this classic Arabic dictionary, al-Jawhari's "Tag al-luga was-sihah al-'arabiya" (The Crown of Language and the Correctness of Arabic), translated into Turkish by Muhammad al-Wani (d. 1592), deriving its title from the Turkish genitive form of the author’s name, Wangulu or Vankulu. - Jawhari himself reached only the letter Dad before he died in an unsuccessful attempt at human flight from the roof of a mosque in 1003 AD (the work was subsequently completed by his student Ishaq Ibrahim bin Salih al-Warraq). To this day the dictionary remains an indispensable companion of Arabic philologists in both the East and the West; "manuscripts are to be found in almost every library" (Brockelmann). "In this great dictionary [the author] codified pure Arabic as based on the criticism of his predecessors' preparatory studies as well as his own experiences and collections. The 'As-sihâh’ is arranged in an alphabetical order, according to the final, and not the first, rooter of the words [...] This system, which was later adopted by other large Arabic dictionaries, attempts to supply those in search of rhyming words with a handbook" (Goldziher, A Short History of Classical Arabic Literature, 1966, p. 70). - Dampstains at end of vol. I and intermittently to vol. II, minor staining to fore-edge. A few scuffs and rubs to binding, but a sound and imposing set, generally clean internally. - Provenance: from the library of the British diplomat and linguist Sir Gore Ouseley (1770-1844), first baronet, with his contemporary signature to the front flyleaf of each volume. Ousely travelled to India in 1787 and established a cloth factory. He lived a relatively solitary existence and spent his leisure time studying Persian, Bengalese Hindi, Arabic, and Sanskrit, becoming an elegant speaker and writer of Persian. An acquaintance of the oriental scholar Sir William Jones, Ouseley was named ambassador extraordinary to the court of Fath Ali Shah in Persia in 1810, negotiated several treaties, and returned to England. He was one of those responsible for the founding of the Royal Asiatic Society in London in 1823 and was associated with the formation of the oriental translation committee, of which he was elected chairman. He became president of the Society for the Publication of Oriental Texts, formed in 1842. Özege 22504. OCLC 773846601 (a single copy, BnF). Cf. GAL I, 128.
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Literary Society of Bombay.
Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay. London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1819-1823.
4to. 3 vols. XXXVIII, 319 (but: 337), (1) pp. VIII, 379, (1) pp. XII, 556 pp. With 50 (instead of 51) engraved plates and maps (9 [instead of 10] of which folding), 2 in original hand colour. Contemporary giltstamped full calf with giltstamped spine-labels. First edition: a scarce series of research papers of one of the leading learned societies of the 19th century, focusing on India and Persia. Among the most prominent authors are James Mackintosh, George Staunton, Henry Salt and Vans Kennedy. The "Transactions" include an English translation of the fifth sermon of Saadi, a discussion of the Akhlaq-i Nasiri, the account of a journey from al-Qatif to Yanbu, a description of the character of Muhammad, and an account on the deciphering of cuneiform, as well as papers on antiquities and archaeology, literature, religion, linguistics, geology, history, current affairs, and anthropology. The illustrations depict mainly archaeological finds and excavation sites, including the caves in Salsette and the excavations at Elephantana, as well as architectural ornamentation, showing the Temple of Boro-Budor, cuneiform writing, and "a curious case in Arabian surgery" involving a wounded arm. - Provenance: "Ochterlony" bookplate to front pastedown of volume II, most likely that of David Ochterlony (1758-1825), commander of the British East India Company and British Resident at the Mughal Court in Delhi. Later obtained by the Schlagintweit brothers, eminent German 19th century scientists and explorers (their library blindstamps "Ex Bibliotheca Schlagintweit" to title-pages). Last in the collection of Prince Konrad of Bavaria (1883-1963), a member of the Bavarian Royal House of Wittelsbach (his bookplate to pastedowns of two volumes and front free endpaper of the other, his library stamp to half-titles). - Bindings professionally restored; vols. I and II lacking title-labels. Tears in gutter of one folding plate repaired with old adhesive tape (not touching image). Some minor spotting, offsetting of plates and text; light marginal dampstaining to a portion of volume two. A scarce work with fine provenance. OCLC 977182244.
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Lopes de Castanheda, Fernão.
The First Booke of the Historie of the Discoverie and Conquest of the East Indias, Enterprised by the Portingales, in their Daungerous Navigations [...]. London, Thomas East, 1582.
4to (146 x 201 mm). (6), 164 ff. With woodcut border surrounding title-page and woodcut initials throughout. 19th century full calf ruled in blind, bound for the Inner Temple Library, London, with two morocco spine labels. All edges red. First English edition of one of the most important historical works of the first great age of discovery, "very rare" (Hill). The author mentions several journeys to the "Moores of Arabia" (27r), such as one in 1487 "to Toro, which is a place that hath his harbour in the Straights of the red Sea in the Coast of Arabia", and other places "in the selfe same Straightes of the Redde Sea" (2v), the ships also passing by "Ormuse" (Hormuz, 3r) on their return journey from India to Cairo. - Most of the "Historie" is devoted to the great Portuguese thrust into Asia in the early 16th century, chronicling their epic expansion to India, the East Indies, and China between 1497 and 1505. Castanheda himself spent some two decades in the Portuguese colonies in the East, and so was well equipped to write this account. It is one of the primary sources for the early Portuguese trading empire, a model that the British were beginning to emulate at the time of publication. This work is equally important, however, for its American content, being the first to describe in detail the voyage of Cabral and his discovery of Brazil in 1500, while on his way out to the East Indies. Cabral's landing is the first recorded there, recounted in Chapters 29-31 of the present work. "A most interesting and rare book" (Sabin). - Originally published at Coimbra in 1551, the book was translated by "Nicholas Lichefield" (probably Thomas Nicholas, the well-known translator of the Tudor era). This edition is appropriately dedicated to Sir Francis Drake. - Binding lightly rubbed in places, but still very presentable. A few near-contemporary annotations and manicules. Upper corner of title-page professionally repaired. Front pastedown shows engraved armorial bookplate (ca. 1700) of the barrister-at-law Herbert Jacob of St Stephen's (Hackington) in Canterbury, who bequeathed his books to the Inner Temple, London. Subsequently removed from the Inner Temple Library, now bearing their winged-horse crest in gilt on upper cover, engraved bookplate on pastedown and two different ink stamps to title-page and variously throughout. Offered by Hordern House, Sydney, in 1998 and sold to the San Francisco collector Bruce McKinney; the lower pastedown shows the bookplate of his 2009 sale. A scarce title with good provenance, in an appealing modern binding. Alden/Landis 582/54. Hill 1035. Borba de Moraes 166f. Palau IV, 262. Penrose, Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance 274-279. STC 16806. Sabin 11391. Streeter Sale 26. Not in Church.
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[Mekka].
Mekke'nin Umumi Görünüsü [General View of Mecca]. [Probably Istanbul, 1950s].
Halftone photolitho, 50 x 67 cm. A large bird's-eye view of Mecca showing the city with its main pilgrimage routes, centered on the Kaaba. The principal monuments and places in the city and its surroundings are identified by 64 numbers, with the key printed in the lower margin. The view is based on the classic engraving issued by the Austrian orientalist Andreas Hunglinger in 1803, itself a copy of a print by Ignace Mouradgea d'Ohsson made in 1791. - Overall in good condition.
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Menou, (Abdallah) Jacques-François de Boussay de.
Ordre du jour, du 29 nivôse an 9. Cairo, Imprimerie nationale, [19 January 1801 CE =] 29 nivôse an IX.
Small folio (215 x 308 mm). Broadsheet, 2 pp. Printed in French and Arabic in two columns. A rare broadsheet from the first printing press in the Arab world, announcing the peace concluded between Napoleon and the rulers of Algiers and Tunis: "Je vous annonce qu'il nous est parvenu récemment des lettres de la part du Gouvernement de la République Française, et de son premier Consul, l'illustre guerrier Bonaparte. Elles nous donnent avis que la paix a été conclue définitivement entre la République Française et les royaumes d'Alger et de Tunis. Que Dieu en soit loué! [...] Habitans de l'Égypte! Dieu favorise toutes les entreprises des Français et du premier consul Bonaparte, qui ne veulent que justice: la tranquillité, la sécurité et le bonheur des peuples [...]". Napoleon's peace treaty was intended to send a strong signal to the Muslim world and pave the way for more ready acceptance of French power in Egypt. - "The expedition of Napoleon Bonaparte to Egypt from 1798 until 1801 was a prelude to modernity. It was to change permanently the traditional Arab world [...] The French brought Arabic typography to Egypt, where it was practised under the supervision [...] of Jean Joseph Marcel [...]. Only a few days after the French troops landed [...] they set up the Imprimerie Orientale et Française there. It was an extraordinarily important turning point. For, leaving aside the Hebrew printing presses in Egypt of the 16th to the 18th centuries, until this date announcements and news adressed to Arabs there, as well as in other parts of the Arab-Islamic world, had been spread only in hand-writing or orally, by criers, preachers or storytellers" (Glass/Roper). - The productions of the Imprimerie included rare scientific and practical brochures, periodicals, but above all broadsheets and notices in French, Arabic and Turkish, intended for authorities, soldiers and the literate general population. The Imprimerie employed more than 30 men, including several Egyptians hired and trained on the spot, among them Yousef Msabky, later head of the royal printing press in Egypt. For the printing of Arabic and Turkish texts the Imprimerie had extensive typographical material at its disposal, including the entire set of oriental types that Monge had seized in Rome from the Congregatio Fide press. Jean-Joseph Marcel, himself a very competent Arabist, enlisted the services of the Turkish interpreter Elia Fatalla and of two scholars from Acre, Yakoub and Mikhaïl, who had fled the persecutions of Jazzar Pasha. - Folded horizontally. Untrimmed an in excellent state of preservation. Cf. D. Glass/G. Roper, The Printing of Arabic Books in the Arab World, in: Middle Eastern Languages and the Print Revolution (Gutenberg Museum Mainz 2002), p. 177-225, at 182.
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Morier, James Justinian.
Haji Baba-yi Isfahani. [The Adventures of Haji Baba of Isphahan - Persian]. Lahore, Alamgir Electric Press, November 1931.
8vo (160 x 244 mm). 456 pp. Lithographed Persian text, 25 lines of Urdu script to the page. Contemporary half leather with cloth covers (wants spine); original wrappers (front cover forming the title-page) bound within. Third Persian edition, printed in India, of "The Adventures of Haji Baba of Isphahan". The picaresque novel by the British diplomat James Morier (1782-1849), first published in English in 1824, satirised the Qajar dynasty in Iran, which supposedly caused the Iranian ambassador to Britain to lodge an official complaint. Translated by Mirza Habib Isfahani under the editorship of Shadan Bilgrami. - Binding rubbed and scuffed, extremeties chipped and bumped, spine missing. Interior clean and well preserved. Rare; no copy in institutional libraries listed in OCLC.
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Müller, Karl.
Ora regionis aromatiferae a Ras Gulvainy ad Ras Hafoun. Libyae ora orientalis secundum periplum Maris Erythraei. [Paris, 1860].
Engraved map, outline coloured. 580 x 260 mm. An antique map showing the East African coastline, extending from the mouth of the Red Sea to the Island of Zanzibar. The work was originally included in Karl Müller's "Geographi Graeci minores", along with many other maps of the region. - The map is highly detailed, showing many settlements, mountains, wadis, and more. The map is composed of four insets, with the largest focusing on the Somali coast. Most interestingly, Müller models one inset after a Greco-Roman periplus describing the western Indian Ocean. On this inset, Müller notes the travel times between adjacent ports, ostensibly following the notes in the periplus. - Fold toning.
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Müller, Karl.
Sinus Arabici pars meridionalis secundum Agatharchidem, Arthemidorum, Plinium, Ptolomaeum. [Paris, 1860].
Engraved map, outline coloured. 730 x 260 mm. An antique map of the upper portion of the Red Sea, referred to on the map as the Sea of Arabia, stretching from the western Gulf of Aden to central Eritrea. This region, one of the most important shipping lanes in the world, also includes parts of the modern-day nations of Yemen, Djibouti, and Somalia. The work was originally included in Karl Müller's "Geographi Graeci minores", along with many other maps of the region. - The map is highly detailed, showing many settlements, mountains, wadis, and more. Most interestingly, Müller provides Ptolemaic coordinates for some of these features, and the map credits Agatharchides, Arthemidorus, Pliny, and Ptolemy as its sources. Place names given range from Arabic to Greek. Seven inset maps are provided, including one showing the full Red Sea. The map also includes a view of the "Pic de Bab-El-Mandeb" (the "gate of tears"), a mountain which lies above the straits at the entrance to the Red Sea.
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Niebuhr, Carsten.
Beschryving van Arabie, uit eigene waarnemingen en in 't land zelf verzamelde narigten opgesteld. Amsterdam and Utrecht, S. J. Baalde and J. van Schoonhoven & Comp., 1774.
4to. (6), XLI, (1), 408, (14) pp., 1 blank leaf. Engraved title-page. With 24 numbered plates (7 of which folding), a folding map of Yemen (coloured in outline), and a folding table. - (Bound with) II: Michaelis, Johann David. Vragen aan een gezelschap van geleerde mannen [...]. Ibid., 1774. XLVI, 270, (2) pp. Contemporary half calf over marbled boards with giltstamped spine and spine labels. First Dutch translation of an important and famous account of the Danish royal expedition to the Middle East, Egypt, Persia and India (1761-67), the first scientific expedition to this area. Niebuhr's account is here bound with the Dutch translation of Michaëlis's work, containing a review of the first. "The expedition had been proposed by the Hebrew scholar Johann David Michäelis of Göttingen for the purpose of illustrating certain passages of the Old Testament, and initially envisaged only a single traveller, possible an Arabic scholar. However, the idea rapidly blossomed into a fully-fledged scientfiic expedi - tion. The team eventually assembled, for which there was no appointed leader, included Niebuhr as surveyor, along with Friedrich Christian von Haven, Peter Forskall, Christian Carl Kramer, Georg Baurenfeind, and a Swedish ex-soldier named Berggren'' (Howgego). Carsten Niebuhr (1733-1815) was the sole survivor, and his work represents an important contribution to the study of the Middle East. His map of Yemen, the first exact map of the area ever, remained the standard for the next 200 years. The plates include views of the mosques of Mecca and Medina, and 6 maps including the map of Yemen and of the Gulf of Suez. Furthermore it contains Arabic specimens from the Qur'an, with vowel points and decorations hand coloured. Niebuhr's "accounts are probably the best and most authentic of their day" (Cox). - Handwritten ownership on title-page cancelled, causing some ink spots to neighbouring pages. Extremities somewhat rubbed. A tear in the large map of Yemen repaired with tape; slight foxing to some plates along the fold lines. A good copy of this standard work. Howgego I, N24. Tiele, Bibl. 795f. Gay 3589. Cf. Atabey 873f. Cox I, 237f. Hamilton, Europe and the Arab world 48.
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[Photos] - Middle Eastern Diplomacy.
A trove of more than 600 photographs. Kuwait City, Manama, Muscat, Beirut, Tunis, Khartoum, London, Seattle, Washington D.C., and other places, 1950s to early 2000s.
Ca. 620 original photographs (ca. 460 in black-and-white and ca. 160 in colour), 1 portrait reproduced from a painting, and 2 small portrait drawings. Various sizes (ca. 39 x 40 to 202 x 300 mm). Most photographs with handwritten Arabic captions in ballpoint on versos, some of which with official stamps, some with pasted mimeograph typescript captions in English. Stored in 11 display books. A handsome trove of photographs, apparently assembled by a Middle Eastern political scientist or journalist, illustrating the evolving history of various countries of the Arabian Peninsula and their political leaders during the second half of 20th century, with an emphasis on the Sheikhs of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain. - Some volumes focus on one or two politicians, with their portrait photographs and their various official appearances while welcoming foreign dignitaries, attending summits, military parades, celebrations, and competitions or award ceremonies. A large section of the archive shows King Fahd bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, including a photograph of him with his brother Turki Bin Abdul-Aziz (vol. 1), depicting him in London on the occasion of a lunch given by Margaret Thatcher, at a diplomatic meeting with Ronald Reagan, and at the "10th Arabian summit" in Tunis (vol. 6). Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz is seen meeting political leaders and ministers (among them Yasuhiro Nakasone and François Mitterrand, vol. 3), and the diplomat and Ambassador to the U.S. Prince Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud meeting Bill Clinton, then Gouverneur of Arkansas, and Vice President George Bush Sr. (Oval Office) for the AWACS plane contract (vol. 10). Another part is dedicated to the OPEC summits under Saudi oil minister Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, meeting Bruno Kreisky in Vienna, as well as at venues in Algiers, Kuwait, Yugoslavia, Caracas, Geneva, Oslo, and other places (vol. 4). King Abdullah Bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud is given a splendid state visit in Britain, where he is welcomed by Prince Charles and shares a carriage with Queen Elisabeth (vol. 5). Other photos show Prince Mashour bin Saud bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, King Fahd's nephew, in London after being freed on bail for smuggling cocaine, and King Faisal during a stay in Khartoum (vol. 8). Another part of the collection shows Kuwaiti leader Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah receiving Yemeni representatives, as well as his successor Saad Al-Abdullah Al-Salim Al-Sabah and his predecessor Sabah III Al-Salim Al-Sabah (vols. 2, 5, 8). Furthermore, Bahrain's royal family is shown: Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa is depicted at a young age practising riding and falconry, and Sheikh Hamad Bin Isa Al Khlaifa (vols. 7, 10, 11) meeting Oman's royals, such as Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the Saudi minister Ghazi al-Gosaibi, and the Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi. Dubai's ruler Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum is depicted at the opening of "Asry dry dock", pouring holy water (vol. 11). - Two original photographs of well-known views of Mecca's Masjid al-Haram with the Kaaba from ca. 1885 and 1920 are added. The photographs are partly stamped and mostly annotated in Arabic (some in English and French), often with mounted labels on the versos for possible use by the press, some with small labels bearing Arabic captions. One photograph has a portion whited out for reproduction, a few photographs with studio imprint ("Zamani"), others with more detailed information, such as the name of the photographer ("Alain Nogue") or agency ("Sygma") on versos. - A wide-ranging, hitherto untapped archive which allows for various perspectives toward an analysis of international, global political diplomacy by Middle Eastern rulers and members of the Arab League, including numerous candid, personal images of the actors involved.
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[Qatar].
Three photographs of Qatari sheikhs. (Karachi), Eveready Studio, early 1970s.
3 black-and-white photographs, ca. 15 x 12 cm each. Vintage gelatin silver prints. Photographed during an early 1970s state visit to Pakistan. All printed by Karachi's Eveready Studio with their name in the lower margin.
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[RAF - Middle East Force].
Air Route books for pilots flying from Cairo to Karachi. Navigation Branch H.Q. 216 Group. No place, 1944.
Two 4to files of ca. 30 leaves each, including distress signal code tables, tips for forced landings, colour-printed route maps, radio beacon maps, emergency airfield maps (folded), and double-sided airfield leaves dedicated to single airfields along the designated route. Original printed wrappers. Perforated and handbound with cords. Two air route books for pilots of the Royal Air Force flying from Cairo to Karachi during World War II, "designed to help [them] to execute flights vital to our fronts in all theatres of war. The information which [they] contain is therefore also of use to the enemy, and must be safeguarded at all times" (p. 1). - The books are in fact useful guides to airports along the way, the plans depicting airfields in Egypt (Cairo West, Almaza, Payne, Heliopolis, Lydda and Luxor), as well as in Bahrein, Sharjah, Jiwani, Karachi, Wadi Halfa, Khartoum, Sheikh Othman, Khormaksar, Riyan and other places. For each airfield general information like coordinates, the length of the runways, the nature of ground signals, existing hangars, repair and fuel facilities, expectable weather conditions, distances to other places, radio aids, and local currency, as well as timetables of morning and evening twilight are given. The folding plans show emergency airfields in Egypt, Palestine and Syria, Iraq, Persia, and the Arabian Gulf area, as well as the routes between the Middle East and India. - Further, the booklets include instructions on what to do after a forced landing in unknown territory, advising to ration water and attract attention of rescue aircraft through a spread-out parachute or fires, including the order: "Don't drink the compass alcohol". - There is no standard collation for the books, as they were added to with monthly supplements. With the handwritten note "Compiled 21.2.45" as well as a signature to inner covers. The "from" and "to" fields on the title-pages (i.e., the front covers) are filled out by the same hand. - Covers show some small creases and edge tears; a few small ruststains, but on the whole well-preserved specimens from wartime Royal Air Force use.
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[Red Sea] - British Admiralty.
Perim Island (or Meyún) and Bab-El-Mandeb Small Strait Surveyed by Lieutt. F. J. Gray, R.N., and the Officers of H.M.S. Nassau, 1874. London, Admiralty, 1874 (1919).
Engraved map. 860 x 690 mm. Extremely detailed chart of Perim Island (also called Mayyun in Arabic) in the Strait of Mandeb, at the southern entrance to the Red Sea. - Perim is a small but geopolitically important island at the entrance to the Red Sea. With the beginning of the French-backed Suez Canal project in the 1850s, the United Kingdom became convinced of the need to offset French power along the route. A number of options were undertaken to counter the French, including the occupation of Perim in 1856. The island was occupied by the Governor of Bombay, under the justification that it had been claimed by the East India Company in 1799 and was therefore already a dependency of India. Perim's inner harbour, as illustrated on the map, could accommodate very large vessels. It was consequently thought a good place for a coaling station, which was established in the 1880s. Water for the steam engine condensers was also provided on Perim (as labeled on the map). Shortly before this map was printed, during World War I, Ottoman forces landed on the island from Aden to attempt to take it and cut British communication through the Red Sea. The invasion was fought back and troops landed by the Royal Navy at Aden ended any future threat to the island. In 1967, the British attempted to have the island internationalized, to ensure the long-term security of the Red Sea-Suez route, but this was refused. In that year the island was handed over to the People's Republic of South Yemen. In 2008 the island was to be a component in the so-called Bridge of Horns, which was to link Yemen and Djibouti and be the largest bridge in the world. The Dubai-backed project did not proceed beyond the planning stage. The island was the site of a battle during the Yemeni Civil War, in which previously displaced Perim natives took the island back from Houthis with the aid of UAE forces.
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Saadi.
Kulliyat-i Sa'di (Saadi's Collected Works). Lucknow & Cawnpore, 1869-1917.
Large 8vo (180 x 270 mm). 6 parts in one volume. 38, 12, 124, 134, 71, (1), 256 (instead of 258, lacking 253-254) pp. Each part with separate title-page. Lithographed Persian verse and prose, 19 lines of Urdu script to the page. Early 20th century green half cloth over red printed paper boards. Handwritten spine label. Indian-produced single volume set containing the works of Sheikh Saadi: the Qasids (elegies), the famous Gulestan (Rose Garden), Bustan (Orchard), Gjaualiat (lyrical poems), Mofradat, Rubayyat, etc. All pages divided into an inner and outer writing field. - Binding rubbed and a little wormed. Interior browned throughout, light worming and edge flaws to beginning and end; lacks a single leaf near the end of the volume. A few 20th century annotations in English and Persian.
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Strecker, [Wilhelm].
Ueber den Rückzug der Zehntausend. Eine Studie. Berlin, Mittler & Sohn, 1886.
8vo. 29, (1) pp. With one lithographed folding map. Contemporary giltstamped full calf bearing the tughra of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. Leading edges gilt. Endpapers with golden floral pattern. All edges gilt. First and sole edition of this historical study of the "March of the Ten Thousand", the retreat of Greek mercenaries immortalized in Xenophon's "Anabasis". The author retraces the soldiers' marching route, drawing on his own experience after having spent several years in Armenia. The map shows a portion of Higher Armenia with the author's own route, as well as that given by Xenophon. Strecker, a former Prussian artillery lieutenant, entered Ottoman service in 1854 and was appointed governor of Bulgaria's Vidin region from 1864 to 1865, when he was known as "Reshid Pascha". In later sources he also appears as a leader of the Ottoman militia, going by the name of "Strecker Pascha". - Spine slightly rubbed, title-page slightly foxed, with traces of a paper label to verso. Inscribed to Sultan Abdul Hamid II and signed in Ottoman Turkish by Strecker (as "Reshid Pasha") on verso of flyleaf, opposite the title. - From the library of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1842-1918), the last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire to exert effective contol over the fracturing state and also remembered as a poet, translator and one of the dynasty's greatest bibliophiles. While his passion for books is memorialized by the many precious donations he gave to libraries all over the world and which mostly have remained intact to this day (including the 400-volume "Abdul-Hamid II Collection of Books and Serials" gifted to the Library of Congress), his own library was dispersed in the years following his deposition in 1909: books were removed to other palaces and even sold to Western collectors, the greatest part of his collection is today preserved in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin. H. Rohrbacher, Georgien. Bibliographie des deutschsprachigen Schrifttums (Wiesbaden 2008), 902.
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Thomas, Bertram.
Arabia Felix. Across the "Empty Quarter" of Arabia. London, Jonathan Cape, 1932.
8vo. XXIX, (3), 397, (1) pp. With 3 maps (one a large folding map of the Empty Quarter at the end of the volume), 74 photo illustrations on plates, and 7 text illustrations. Publisher's brown cloth with title in gilt to spine. First edition, published simultaneously with the New York one. The preface was contributed by T. E. Lawrence. Among the many photograph illustrations is one of the earliest portraits of the Qatar royal family (facing p. 298). "In this book, Bertram Thomas relates some aspects of his journey in which he crossed the Rub' Al Khali (Empty Quarter) from Oman to Qatar, and provides geographical information about the peninsula of Qatar, especially the southern part. He also recorded his observations of the region stretching from the Gulf of Salwa to Al-Rayyan, where he met Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim Al Thani, Emir of Qatar at the time (1930). The book includes photographs he took of Sheikh Abdullah, Mohamed bin Abdul-Latif bin Mani', and his brother Saleh bin Abdul-Latif bin Mani'. He gives some concise information about Al-Nuaija, Doha towers, and the castle" (Fikri). - Provenance: armorial bookplate of Arthur Garrard to front pastedown. Later in the collection of the Dutch traveller Ruud Verkerk. Macro 2185. M. H. Fikri, Qatar in the Heart and in History (2011), p. 46f. (illustrated).
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[Yemen] - Reimer, Dietrich.
Jemen. Hadramaut. Versuch einer Darstellung vom glücklichen oder südöstlichen Arabien zu C. Ritter's Erdkunde (Drittes Buch West Asien Band VI) von Carl Zimmermann, Second-Lieutenant im 21ten Infanterie Regiment. (Zum Atlas von Vorder Asien gehörig). Berlin, G. Reimer, 1846.
Engraved map. 1245 x 690 mm (if joined). Fine large-format map of the southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula. Includes a large inset plan of Aden and smaller inset maps of the island of Socotra and a smaller map of the routes to Mecca. Illustrates the indigenous peoples, towns, topography and trade routes in the region. - 2 sheets, unjoined.
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[Algerian piracy].
Breve relacion de la refriega que la Capitana Real de Espana con otras quatro galeras de su guarda, ha tenido con una nao grande de cossarios de Argel [...]. (Barcelona, Estevan Liberos, 1621).
4to. (4) pp. With 2 woodcut vignettes. Sewn. Extremely scarce pamphlet on a naval battle in the Mediterranean near Cabo de Gata (Andalusia). It describes the destruction of a ship of corsairs from Algiers by the Spanish vessel "San Pedro" on 7 January 1621, killing 70 men. The victory proved important for the Spaniards, as the surviving corsairs provided them with useful intelligence, including information regarding the deployment of 30 Algerian vessels in the area, all seeking to rob other ships. However, the Ottomans were ignorant of any Royal Navy galleys which the Spanish suspected in the area, rather presuming them near Mallorca or Sardinia. - Large Jesuit woodcut vignette to the otherwise blank final page. Somewhat browned. Near-contemporary foliation in ink (205-206), suggesting the work was originally part of a larger volume. No copies traceable in libraries worldwide. Not in OCLC.
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[Algerian piracy].
Copia de una carta que un cavallero, que va embarcado en la Patrona Real, ha escrito a un cavallero desta ciudad, dandole aviso de como en la costa de Cataluna, en el Cabo de Begur descubrieron un vaxel de Turcos [...]. (Barcelona, Estevan Liberos, 1623).
4to. (3) pp., final blank page. With woodcut illustration on the title-page. Sewn. Scarce account of a naval battle in the Mediterranean that took place near Cap de Begur (Catalonia) between a Spanish vessel and a ship of corsairs from Algiers in April 1623. The latter, carrying "50 Turcs, 4 captured Christians, a black Moorish woman, and a Mallorcan renegade", went up in flames. Allegedly the copy of a letter by a soldier of the Spanish Armada. The illustration shows the Ottoman vessel features 11 sailors at the helms wearing turbans. - Slightly dampstained. Near-contemporary foliation in ink (137-138), suggesting the work was originally part of a larger volume. Palau 61131. Not in OCLC.
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[Arabian Nights]. Burton, Richard Francis.
A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, Now Entituled the Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night. (Including: Supplemental Nights). [Boston?], The Burton Club, [ca. 1904].
Royal 8vo (24 x 16 cm). 14 (instead of 17) vols. With frontispieces and numerous illustrations (vol. 8 lacking one image). Contemporary richly gilt full cloth. Top edges gilt. - (2) The same. The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night. A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments. Vol. IV. (Including: Supplemental nights, vol. VI). (Colophons: USA), ibid., [ca. 1940]. Contemporary richly gilt and silvered full cloth. Top edges red. The first Burton Club edition of Richard Burton's celebrated translation of Alf Laylah wa-Laylah, commonly known in English as the Arabian Nights. These Arabic tales, cherished in Europe since the early 18th century, are often erotic in content, and in Burton's unexpurgated translation they outraged Victorian England. Burton included numerous footnotes and a scholarly apparatus, offering a vivid picture of Arabian life, which set his translation apart from earlier English renderings. Bold to a fault, Richard Burton travelled to Mecca, explored the African Great Lakes, shocked his readers with his candid travel accounts, and gained fame and riches with his translation of the Arabian Nights. The first edition was published in 1885-88 and re-issued by the Burton Club shortly thereafter. - The present set lacks volume 4 of the "Nights", as well as volumes 4 and 7 of the "Supplemental Nights". The volumes numbered "IV" and "V" of the "Supplemental Nights" are in fact volumes 5 and 6. In lieu of the missing tomes the collection includes volume 4 of the "Arabian Nights" and volume 6 of the "Supplemental Nights" from a later 16-volume Burton Club edition, which Ross dates ca. 1940. This later date is supported by the fact that this edition is not included in Penzer's thorough bibliography published in 1923. - Spines slightly faded; extremities lightly worn. A fine set, uncut and partly unopened. Penzer 131. (2) Scheherazade's Web: The 1001 Nights & Comparative Literature, J. Ross 10 & 11.
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Bury, George Wyman.
Arabia Infelix, or the Turks in Yamen. London, Macmillan and Co., 1915.
Large 8vo. X, 213, (3) pp. With 3 maps and 18 plates, some containing multiple images. Red cloth, blind-tooling on covers, title information in gold on spine. First edition of G. W. Bury's account of Yemen on the eve of WWI. Bury (1874-1920) was a British naturalist, explorer, Arabist and political officer in the British army, who spent most of his life in the Aden-Yemen borderlands. As a young man, he spent a year with the Abdali tribe in the Aden protectorate; he learned their language and even received the name Abdulla Mansur. Later in life, he was able to pass himself off as a local, because of his looks and command of colloquial Arabic. The British government made use of this by employing Bury as a political officer in the region and even escorting the British part of the Boundary Commission in the Dhala region of Yemen. - "At the outbreak of World War I, Bury's unique knowledge of the Arab tribesmen and the Turkish administration commended him to the British intelligence service, and in 1915 he was made 'political officer' to the Red Sea Northern Patrol with the rank of lieutenant in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve" (Howgego). - Very slight browning, small tear in the contents-page (outer margin). Overall in good condition. Howgego IV, B99. Macro 642. Shapero, The Islamic World (2003), 163. Smith, The Yemens, 59. Sotheby's, Burrell sale, lot 136. Cf. Canton, From Cairo to Baghdad British travellers in Arabia, pp. 170-176.
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Committee on Foreign Affairs.
The Persian Gulf, 1975: the continuing debate on arms sales. Hearings before the special subcommittee on investigations of the committee on international relations, house of representatives, ninety-fourth congress, first Session. June 10, 18, 24 and July 29, 1975. Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976.
8vo. VI, 261 pp. Original printed paper wrappers. Document printed by the government of the United States of America, concerning "the escalating level of arms sales to Gulf states" (p. V). Included are statements of witnesses, memorandums, tables and other important documents concerning the (illegal) arms trade. Occasionally a marginal annotation in red ink. Otherwise in very good condition.
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[Conquest of Oran].
Breve relaçao dos progressos, que as armas espanholas tem feito na defeza de Praça de Oran, contra os mouros [...]. (Lisbon, Jose de Aquino Bulhoens, 1791).
4to. 14 pp., final blank leaf. Two printed sheet folded into a pamphlet, unsewn and unbound. Very rare Portuguese account of one of several unsuccessful 18th century attempts by Muslim forces to recapture Oran. Translated by Manuel Pedro Tomás Pinheiro e Aragão (1773-1838), describing the events of May and June 1791. From 1790 to 1792, Muslim forces, led by Mohamed El-Kebir (d. 1796), besieged Oran and Mers el-Kebir, which were in Spanish hands since 1732. Both cities would be returned to the Ottoman Empire after a massively destructive earthquake in 1792. - First page somewhat spotty. Uncut and untrimmed. BGUC Misc. 24, 508. OCLC 56569516.
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[Conquest of Oran].
Nova relaçam da famoza, e admiravel batalha, que tiverao os castelhanos com os mouros, em que triunfarao delles na praça de Orao [...]. Lisbon, Pedro Ferreira, 1754.
4to. 8 pp. With woodcut title vignette. Printed sheet folded into a pamphlet, unsewn and unbound. Rare Portuguese account of one of several unsuccessful 18th century attempts by Muslim forces to recapture Oran. This operation took place in March of 1754, more than two decades after the Spanish conquest of the city in 1732. Oran was repeatedly attacked by Algerian and Ottoman forces, but remained under Spanish rule until 1792. - Uncut and untrimmed. BGUC Misc. 24, 459. OCLC 27754498.
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[Conquest of Oran] - Monterroyo Mascarengas, Jose Freire de.
Oran conquistado ou relaçam historica, em que se dà noticia desta Praça, da sua conquista, e da sua perda, e restauraçao, colhida de varios avizos [...]. Lisbon, Pedro Ferreira, 1732.
4to. 20, (3) pp., final blank page. With a woodcut illustration. - (Bound with) II: The same. Oran conquistado, e defendido, relaçam historica [...] Parte II. Ibid., 1733. 16 pp. Later full vellum. First editions. Both separately published parts of this rare work on the Spanish expedition against Muslim Oran. After a survey of the history and geography of Oran (in modern Algeria), the author describes the preparations for the expedition to recapture the city, enumerates the Spanish leaders, and gives details of the Spanish naval and military attacks on sites in and around Oran in June and July 1732. The captain-general of the expedition was José Carrillo de Albornoz, first Duke of Montemar, who had fought in the War of the Spanish Succession and the War of the Quadruple Alliance; at this time he was viceroy of Sicily. Facing p. 20 is the plan of battle for the Spanish forces. The woodcut on the verso shows the harbour at Oran, the town, and the half-dozen fortresses surrounding it, as well as the position of the Spanish navy during the battle. The final leaf has the key to the map on its recto, with the verso blank. Freire de Monterroyo Mascarenhas explains in the dedication that he compiled this account from many shorter ones, because the public was eager to learn about the reconquest. Oran, which was in Spanish hands since 1509, had been captured by the Turks in 1708, while Spain was preoccupied with the War of the Spanish Succession. Spain then held the city from 1732 until 1792, when it suffered a massively destructive earthquake and King Charles IV handed the city back to the Ottoman Empire. - First part uncut. Second part slightly wormed near the gutter. Occasional light brownstaining. The two parts are very rarely encountered together. Inocêncio IV, 348. Barbosa Machado II, 856. BGUC Misc. 3, 80.
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Coon, Carleton S[tevens].
Measuring Ethiopia and Flight into Arabia. Boston, Little, Brown, and Company, 1935.
8vo. IX, (5), 333, (1) pp. With 8 plates. Yellow cloth with title information in blue on front cover and spine, with a dust jacket designed by Paul Wenck, map of Ethiopia and Arabia on the endpapers. First edition of Coon's account of his experiences in Ethiopia and Arabia. From 1933 to 1934 Coon travelled through Ethiopia to conduct physical anthropological research, but after conflicts with the authorities he had to escape to Arabia. He states in his foreword that the purpose of the present work is a memoir, since it was not meant to "impress the public with our scientific findings, for, interesting as these results may or may not be, they are reserved for more formal publication", but simply to tell what he and two others did during the expedition. C. S. Coon (1904-81) was an American anthropologist and professor of anthropology at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. He spoke ten languages and made notable contributions to the fields of cultural and physical anthropology and archaeology. He was the author of multiple works, including highly controversial works on race, such as "The Origin of Races" (1962), which were widely disputed during his lifetime and are considered pseudoscientific by modern anthropology. - Dust jacket somewhat damaged, covered with clear protective plastic, edges foxed. Otherwise in very good condition. Macro 747. Shapero, The Islamic World (2003), 178. Sotheby's, Burrell sale, lot 889.
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Dumont, X[avier].
Guide de la Lecture des Manuscrits Arabes. Alger, Brachet & Bastide, 1842.
4to (172 x 256 mm). 107, (1) pp. Lithographed throughout. Contemporary half calf over blue marbled boards. Only edition of this rare instruction manual designed by the editor to help learners of Arabic overcome what Caussin de Perceval identified as the greatest difficulty in acquiring the language: the obstacle of reading the script. Dumont's workbook provides a total of 25 specimen texts, first in the original handwriting, then in a standardized transcription (such as might be more easily legible to learners familiar with printed Arabic), and finally a French translation. The contents are listed in a separate table at the end: they include examples such as an appointment as manager, various legal documents, literary and narrative pieces, private and business correspondence, and passages from the Qur'an. - Unnumbered pages (1-2) bound last as colophon leaf. A rare Franco-Algerian produced manual in good condition throughout. OCLC 14851800.
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[Hogarth, David George (ed.).].
A Handbook of Arabia. Volume I: General. Volume II: Routes. London, H. M. Stationery Office (Frederick Hall, Oxford) and (vol. 2) Admiralty War Staff, Intelligence Division, [1916]-May 1917.
8vo. (3)-708, (2) pp., XV pp. of plates. With four folding maps within pouch inside lower cover. 519, (3) pp., IX pp. of plates. Lacks the map, but with a different, supernumerary map within pouch inside lower cover. Modern (vol. 1) and original (vol. 2) blue cloth with giltstamped cover and spine titles (vol. 2 with closing fore-edge flap). Only edition of this rare, secret Naval Intelligence Handbook, compiled by D. G. Hogarth, Keeper of Antiquities at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (and close friend of T. E. Lawrence) for the British Admiralty's new Naval Intelligence Division, intended for the exclusive use of British officers operating on the Arabian Peninsula during the Great War. Although the information contained was classified as confidential, it could "in certain cases be communicated to persons in H.M. Service below the rank of commissioned officer", though officers exercising this power were warned to impart such data only with "due caution and reserve". As the introductory "Note" informs the reader, "The sources from which this work has been compiled include native information obtained since the outbreak of the war [...] Separate chapters are devoted to each of the great districts of Arabia [...] After the area of the territory under review has been defined, its physical character is described unter the subsections of Relief and Climate. Then follow social and political surveys of the district, the former usually arranged under the sub-headings of Population, Life and Appliances, Products and Trade, Currency, and Weights and Measurements, the latter describing the system of Government, Recent History, and Present Politics. The last section of such a chapter is purely geographical and is devoted to the Districts of the territory [...] In a composite chapter, such as that on the Gulf Coast, dealing with several independent territories, the same general arrangement, when practicable, has been followed for each area [...] The plates at the end of each volume have been chosen to illustrate the varieties of country which are characteristic of Arabia". The second volume is devoted "mainly to detailed routes, preceded by two chapters on methods of transport and lines of communication [...] Chapters have been incorporated on Meteorological Observations, Hygiene and Disease, and Vocabularies". All four maps of the first volume (Districts and Town; Orographical Features; Land Surface Features; Tribal Map) are present as called for; the "Key Map of Routes" in the second volume has been replaced by an orographical map of Palestine and Trans-Jordan (1933). While the first volume (I. D. 1128) has been rebound to style (lacking the half-title noting the confidential character of all information contained), the second volume (C. B. 405) is preserved in its original binding as issued, bearing also the copy number "Copy 117" in gilt on the upper cover. A Note of Confidentiality calls attention to "the penalties attaching to any infraction of the Offical Secrets Act". Stamps on flyleaf and pastedown trace its provenance to the Royal Central Asian Society, founded in 1901, and the book remained on the shelf of that Society's secretary when it was renamed the "Royal Society for Asian Affairs" in 1975. This ownership is cancelled in ballpoint, with a note "Sold to Mr. M. Graham" (i.e., Murray Graham, British collector and exploration agent in Arabia, d. 2008). Acquired from UK trade. OCLC 29922535, 775016994. Not in Macro.
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Kurpershoek, Paul Marcel.
Oral poetry and narratives from Central Arabia. 1. The poetry of ad-Dindân a Bedouin Bard in Southern Najd. 2. The Story of a Desert Knight. The Legend of Sçwîh al-'Atâwi & Other 'Utaybah Heroes. 3. Bedouin Poets of the Dawâsir Tribe Between Nomadism & Settlement in Southern Najd. Leiden, New York, Cologne, Brill, 1994-1999.
Large 8vo. 3 volumes. XVII, (5), 368, (4) pp. XIV, (4), 512, (2) pp. XX, 506, (4) pp. With 2 portraits as frontispieces in vols. 1 and 2. 16 pages with illustrations and 2 maps at the end of vols. 2 and 3. Red cloth with title information in gold on front cover and spine of all 3 vols. All 3 vols. have a dust jacket. Outstanding research on the oral traditions of the Bedouins in central Arabia, divided into 3 volumes containing information on the poetry and narratives of various Bedouin tribes and an analysis and translation of various poems and stories. Kurpershoek has recorded, transcribed and translated all poetry and narratives he discusses in this work. - Since its first publication in 1994-99, this trilogy has been expanded with two additional volumes: vol. 4, published in 2002, deals with Saudi tribal history, while vol. 5 (2005) looks back on almost 20 years of research on and involvement with Arabian oral culture. - The Dutch scholar, author and diplomat P. M. Kurpershoek specialises in Arab studies. Kurpershoek studied Arabic language and culture at the Universities of Leiden and Cairo; since 1974 he has worked for the Dutch ministry of foreign affairs, the UN and NATO. As a professor of languages and cultures of the Islamic Middle East at the University of Leiden, he has performed research on the Bedouins of Saudi Arabia. From 2002 until 2013 he served successively as Dutch ambassador to Pakistan, Turkey, and Poland. Subsequently, from August 2013 until December 2014 he served as envoy to Syria. - Spines of the dust jackets of vols. 1 and 2 are slightly discoloured, otherwise in very good condition.
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Lamm, Carl Johan / Geijer, Agnes.
Orientalische Briefumschläge in schwedischem Besitz. Stockholm, Wahlström & Widstrand, 1944.
4to. 47, (3) pp., final blank leaf. With 11 plates with black and white photographic illustrations on recto and verso, as well as 2 plates with 2 mounted colour illustrations on recto. Contemporary green half calf over marbled boards with giltstamped title to spine. Original printed wrappers bound within. The first art-historical examination ever published of the 17th century oriental (Turkish, Persian and Crimean Tatar) cloth envelopes kept at the Swedish Reichsarchiv. This work discusses the use of the textile envelopes as well as their production, fashioning, material and patterns. The personal copy of Carl Johan Lamm with pencil inscription to pastedown: "From the library of C. J. Lamm". - Carl Johan Lamm studied archaeology at the University of Stockholm. He wrote about the glass excavated at Samarra in 1928 and became a leading scholar on Islamic arts and crafts, notably in glass and carpets. He was on the staff of the Stockholm Museum and taught at Uppsala University. - Agnes Geijer was a Swedish textile historian and archaeologist. She received a doctoral degree from Uppsala University in 1938 and started working at the Swedish History Museum in 1941, where she was active from 1947 as a textile conservator. - Unobtrusive scratch to lower board, otherwise in excellent condition. Yuan 2172. OCLC 871325817.
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Lotti, Lotto.
[Ch' n' ha Cervell ava gamb.] La liberazione di Vienna assediata dalle armi Ottomane. Poemetto giocoso. E la Banzuola. Dialoghi sei. In lingua popolare Bolognese. [Prob. Bologna, c. 1746].
8vo. (8), 248 pp. With engr. frontispiece and 12 full-page engravings by G. M. Cantarelli. Contemp. blue wrappers. Third edition (probably printed in Bologna) of Lotto Lotti's (1667-1714) poem celebrating the liberation of Vienna from the 1683 Turkish siege, written in the Bologna dialect and first published in Parma in 1685. "Divided in 5 cantos of 30 to 40 eight-line verses each" (Kábdebo). Pretty engravings; the one facing the first canto (a besieging army aiming their cannons) shows contemporary touches of blue colour in places. Includes Lotti's collection of dialogues, "La Banzuola" (likewise illustrated throughout). - Date taken from the engraving on fol. O5v. Untrimmed copy. Sturminger 1973. NUC (pre-1956) vol. 342, p. 194. ICCU UBOE\075844, VEAE\001888. Graesse IV, 264. Cf. Kábdebo II, 290.
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Marcandier, M.
Traité du Chanvre. Paris, Nyon, 1758.
Small 8vo. (4), VII, (1), 138, (2) pp. Modern half calf with giltstamped red spine label, light cloth covers. All edges red. Rare first edition of one of the earliest treatises devoted exclusively to cannabis, extolling its virtues as a medicine, industrial fibre, seed oil, soap, animal feed, and so on. Marcandier in particular recommends the cultivation of the plant in the "Nord d'Amerique" (p. 46), and indeed the Traité du Chanvre was read by perhaps that region's most famous hemp enthusiast, George Washington - whose library contained a copy of the English translation printed in 1764, cataloged as Wa/549. - Marcandier begins with a scholarly account of the herb as it was known to the Romans (quoting Dioscorides, Pliny, and Herodotus), presenting intriguing theories of the etymology of the term cannabis: from the Celtic canab; the Greek kanna; the Hebrew kanneh; the Latin canna; etc. Although he is most concerned with its cultivation and medical applications, in his surveys of cannabis in non-European cultures we find descriptions of what can be termed 'recreational use': for example, "the Hottentots use a plant, named Dakha, instead of tobacco, or at least mix them together, when their provision of the latter is almost exhausted. They say that it is a kind of wild hemp" (pp. 19f.), while the 'flour' (farine) of the plant mixed into a drink "renders those who use it drunk, stupid, dazed; they say that the Arabs make of it a type of wine, which intoxicates" (p. 37). - Evidently drawing on personal experience, Marcandier describes the female flower as a "tender, sweet, and oily, white kernel, of a strong smell, that intoxicates when it is fresh" (p. 28) and even gives lengthy advice on how to inspect and purchase good-quality hemp (p. 76) and how to dry the plant properly, to avoid 'black spots' i.e. mold from forming (p. 54). - Cannabis is also recommended for myriad medicinal uses: "The grain and the leaves being squeezed, while they are green, and applied, by way of cataplasm, to painful tumors, are reckoned to have a great power of relaxing and stupefying ... The root of it boiled in water, and applied in the form of a cataplasm, softens and restores the joints of fingers or toes that are dried and shrunk. It is very good against the gout, and other humours that fall upon the nervous, muscular, and tendinous parts. It abates inflammations, dissolves tumours, and hard swellings upon the joints. Beat and pounded in a mortar, with butter, when it is still fresh, it is applied to burns, which it relieves greatly when it is often renewed" (pp. 38, 40f.). Marcandier also finds it useful as a spermicide (p. 35) and against gonorrhea, jaundice, smallpox, and 'vermin of the ear'. - A few contemporary ink annotations throughout. Provenance: from the library of the noted French botanist Philippe de Vilmorin (1872-1917) with his bookplate and separate shelfmark label ("a progenie in progenies") to pastedown. An excellent copy. Very rare: OCLC records 8 copies in US institutions (Chicago, Princeton, Lloyd Museum (OH), American Philosophical Society, Carnegie Mellon (Hunt Institute), Harvard, Minnesota, and the JCB). Not in Kress. Cf. Clarke & Merlin, Cannabis: Evolution and Ethnobotany (University of California Press, 2013), p. 202; and Gibson, "Bibliotheca Cannabinacea", in: Journal of Industrial Hemp 13 (2008), pp. 176-188.
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[Ottoman Empire].
Fiel treslado da carta traduzida de Italiano en Portugues, na qual se relata a victoria naval, alcançada contra os turcos na sua força de Dardanelli, pela armada da serenissima Republica de Veneza [...]. (Lisbon, Officina Craebeekianaa, 1656).
4to. (11) pp., final blank page. Sewn. Scarce Portuguese account of the Third Battle of the Dardanelles in the Sixth Ottoman-Venetian War, the heaviest defeat the Ottomans had suffered since the Battle of Lepanto. Since 1645, Venice and the Ottoman Empire had been at war over the possession of the island of Crete. Ottoman forces had captured most of the island in the early years of the war, but were unable to seize its capital, the heavily fortified city of Candia (modern Iraklio). The Venetians had endeavoured to cut off the Ottoman army's supplies and reinforcements, and attempted several times to blockade the Straits of the Dardanelles, through which the Ottoman fleet had to sail to reach the Aegean from its base around Constantinople. In the morning of 26 June 1656 the wind was from the north, and the Ottomans made good progress, the Venetian galleys being unable to assist their sailing ships. Then the wind backed, trapping the Ottomans against the Asian side of the strait just below the Narrows, and a mêlée ensued. Kenan Pasha got back past the Narrows with 14 galleys but the rest were either captured, sunk or burned. - Numbered "17" in ink on first page. Small rust spot on first page, otherwise very well preserved. BGUC Misc. 3, 58. OCLC 1045393175.
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Philby, Harry St John Bridger.
Arabian Days. An Autobiography. London, Robert Hale Ltd., 1948.
8vo. XVI, 336 pp. With a portrait of the author as a frontispiece and 24 double-sided plates. Blue cloth. First edition, second impression. The autobiography of the noted British Arabist, explorer, writer, officer and adviser to Ibn Saud, Harry St John Bridger Philby (1885-1960). In the preface Philby states that he mainly describes the essential and most notable features and events of his public life. He began writing this work in 1934, but the next decade was filled with activity and adventure, both in Britain and abroad, which kept him from writing and publishing the work until after the Second World War. During this time, he was asked by King Ibn Sa'ud of Saudi Arabia to map the border between his newly formed kingdom and the Yemen. This gave Philby the opportunity to explore Southern Arabia, where he also made archaeological discoveries. - Philby undertook his first journey to Arabia in 1917 in order to complete a mission to Ibn Sa'ud; once there he formed a lifelong acquaintanceship with the future king of Saudi Arabia. In 1930 Philby officially converted to Islam. - The present copy is the second impression of the first edition which were published mere months apart in the same year. Philby's descriptions of his many experiences in Britain, India and the Middle East are accompanied by numerous images of him, his family, King Ibn Sa'ud, government officials, and buildings and landscapes he encountered. - Binding shows very slight signs of wear, small inscription in blue ink to the verso of the first flyleaf, very slight browning throughout. Howgego IV, P 31. Macro 1776. Shapero, The Islamic World (2003), 394. Sotheby's, Burrell sale, lot 623.
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Philby, Harry St John Bridger.
Arabian Jubilee. London, Robert Hale Ltd., 1952.
8vo. XIV, 280 pp. With a portrait of King 'Abdul-'Aziz Ibn Sa'ud as the frontispiece, 1 map of Arabia in 1950, and 16 double-sided plates. Black cloth. First edition of this biography of Saudi Arabian King HRH Abdul-Aziz bin Abdul Rahman al Sa'ud by his adviser Harry St John Bridger Philby. Ibn Sa'ud was the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, when after a conquest spanning 30 years he united most of the Arabian Peninsula under his rule. He reigned from 1932 until his death in 1953, but had previously (since 1902) ruled parts of what was to become Saudi Arabia as Emir, Sultan, King of Nejd, and King of Hejaz. The present work is not a complete and final biography: at the time of writing and publication the king was still alive, and Philby states in the preface that "it is rather a pageant of his [Ibn Sa'ud's] achievement, set forth in a series of tableaux illustrating characteristic phases of his career". The descriptions of these phases contain not only information relating to the king, but also inform the reader about the country as a whole and are enlivened by accounts and other small details of court life and Islamic customs, including a pilgrimage to Mecca. The work is illustrated with numerous images of the king and his family, and important landmarks in Saudi Arabia. - Binding shows slight signs of wear, spine is slightly discoloured, slight foxing to edges, very slight browning throughout, several newspaper clippings in a small paper pocket on the lower pastedown. Overall in good condition. Howgego IV, P 31. Cf. (other ed.) Shapero, The Islamic World (2003), 395; Sotheby's, Burrell sale, lot 623.
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Philby, Harry St John Bridger.
Halévy in the Yaman (The Geographical Journal Vol. 102, no. 3). [London, The Royal Geographical Society], September 1943.
8vo. 115-124 pp. Contemporary blue cloth with giltstamped title to upper cover: "Philby - Yaman". First edition. A brief investigation of Joseph Halévy's journey through the Jawf region of Yemen, comparing the account given by Hayyim Habshush, recently published, with Halévy's own. - St John Philby (1885-1960), also known by his Arabian name "Sheikh Abdullah", was an Arabist, explorer, writer, and British colonial office intelligence officer. Educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, he studied oriental languages and was a friend and classmate of Jawaharlal Nehru, later prime Minister of India. Philby settled in Jeddah and became famous as an international writer and explorer. He personally mapped on camelback what is now the Saudi-Yemeni border on the Rub' al Khali; in 1932, while searching for the lost city of Ubar, he was the first Westerner to visit and describe the Wabar craters. At this time, Philby also became Ibn Saud's chief adviser in dealing with the British Empire and Western powers. He converted to Islam in 1930. The personal contacts between the United States and Saudi Arabia were largely channeled through the person of Philby. - Very slight browning, a few minor stains to the first page. Macro 1782. Smith, The Yemens, 84.
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Philby, Harry St. John Bridger.
Sheba's Daughters, Being a Record of Travel in Southern Arabia [...] With an appendix on the rock inscriptions by A. F. L. Beeston. London, Methuen & Co., [1939].
4to. XIX pp., one blank page, 485, (1) pp. With photographic frontispiece, 46 photographic plates (1 of which double-page), 1 folding map of southern Arabia, and several photographic illustrations in the text. Publisher's full cloth with giltstamped title and ornament to spine. First edition. Travel account by the first European to cross the Rub' al-Khali (Empty Quarter) of Arabia from east to west, the Arabist, explorer, writer, and British colonial office intelligence officer St. John Philby (1885-1960), also known by his Arabian name "Sheikh Abdullah". Educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, he studied oriental languages and was a friend and classmate of Jawaharlal Nehru, later prime Minister of India. Philby settled in Jeddah and became famous as an international writer and explorer. He personally mapped on camelback what is now the Saudi-Yemeni border on the Rub' al Khali; in 1932, while searching for the lost city of Ubar, he was the first Westerner to visit and describe the Wabar craters. At this time, Philby also became Ibn Saud's chief adviser in dealing with the British Empire and Western powers. He converted to Islam in 1930. The personal contacts between the United States and Saudi Arabia were largely channeled through the person of Philby. - From the collection of the Dutch traveller and collector Ruud Verkerk. With 2 inserted colour photographs mounted on the plates facing p. 314 and 318, showing Verkerk standing beside rock inscriptions on the old fort at 'Uqla - south face, as well as standing before the Rock fort of 'Uqla, both dated in pencil 18 December 1997. Light damage to head of spine. Paper occasionally foxed and a slightly creased. Overall a good copy. Macro 1801. OCLC 4836861.
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Philby, Harry St John Bridger.
The Land of Sheba (The Geographical Journal Vol. 92, no. 1). [London, The Royal Geographical Society], July 1938.
8vo. 21, (1), 107-132 pp. With 1 large folding, coloured map, 1 smaller, uncoloured folding map, and numerous photographs on 7 plates. Later half cloth over marbled paper boards with giltstamped title to spine. First edition. Important account of travels in southern Arabia performed in 1936, particularly in the Hadhramaut, by the Arabist, explorer, writer, and British colonial office intelligence officer St. John Philby (1885-1960), also known by his Arabian name "Sheikh Abdullah". It describes the longest of Philby's journeys, ostensibly to map the new frontier with Yemen, containing excellent photographs taken for the first time in that area by a European. Until the 1930s the highlands of the south-western corner of Arabia were among the world's few remaining lands not fully explored or charted. - Educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, Philby studied oriental languages and was a friend and classmate of Jawaharlal Nehru, later prime Minister of India. Philby settled in Jeddah and became famous as an international writer and explorer. He personally mapped on camelback what is now the Saudi-Yemeni border on the Rub' al Khali; in 1932, while searching for the lost city of Ubar, he was the first Westerner to visit and describe the Wabar craters. At this time, Philby also became Ibn Saud's chief adviser in dealing with the British Empire and Western powers. He converted to Islam in 1930. The personal contacts between the United States and Saudi Arabia were largely channeled through the person of Philby. - Clear tape on the first page, covering part of the title of the journal without affecting the page or legibility of the text; very slight foxing on the large coloured map (mainly on the back). In very good condition. Macro 1788.
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Philby, Harry St John Bridger.
The Queen of Sheba. London, Melbourne and New York, Quartet Books, 1981.
4to. 141 pp., final blank page. With 8 coloured plates and numerous photographs (some in colour) in the text. Contemporary full cloth with giltstamped spine-title and illustrated dust jacket. First edition. Lavishly illustrated posthumous edition of an unpublished manuscript "by the great Arabian traveller, scholar and writer, H. St John Philby [...] charting his explorations into the bewildering thickets of the story [of the Queen of Sheba]" (publisher's blurb). With an introduction by the British military officer, Arabist, explorer, historian and diplomat Gerald de Gaury (1897-1984). - Dutch newspaper clipping about the analysis of an Ethiopian DNA sample supposedly going back to the legendary Queen of Sheba is loosely inserted. - In mint condition. OCLC 640352386.
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