4to. 160 pp. Ottoman Turkish text set in Arabic characters. Half-title on the upper wrapper and the first page of text are set within a decorative printed frame. With an integral manuscript French translation of the text in the margins. Original publisher's printed paper wrappers. - With: (II) [Shaikhzade Ahmed Misri] / Belleteste, [Henri Nicolas]. Contes Turcs en langue turque, extraits du roman intitulé, les quarante vizirs. [= Kirk vezir hikâyeleri ...]. Ibid., 1812. 4to. (2), 258, (2) pp. The text is entirely in Ottoman Turkish except for an additional title-page in French. Both Arabic and French title-pages include the vignette of the French Imprimerie Impériale. Blue wrappers with a white printed title label on the spine, stored in a custom-made case: half red leather with the title in gold on the spine and white and green decorated sides. Two excellent examples of Arabic type printing by the French Imprimerie Impériale: the 1812 edition of "the history of the forty viziers" in Ottoman Turkish. This collection of Turkish folk tales is a variation of the Thousand and One Nights stories. These frame stories play an important role in the storytelling tradition of the Middle East and often form the basis (Middle) Eastern literature in general. Examples of these stories are found in early Indian, Iranian and Arabic sources, but the exact origin of the stories of the forty viziers is not clear. The stories and/or the first translations of the stories from Arabic were attributed to Ahmed-i Misri and/or Seyhzade (or Sheykh-Zada), about whom nothing is known. These names were possibly pseudonyms of the actual authors-translators who did not want to be associated with stories that were composed in prose, had suggestive or crude passages, and were compiled from other earlier frame stories. - According to extant sources, the entire collection of folk tales concerning the stories of the viziers could contain eighty stories, forty of the viziers during the day and forty of the women during the night. In addition, the stories could also include various advice sections, other small stories, Arabic, Persian and Turkish poems, verses, hadiths, dreams and their interpretations. Different compositions and adaptations would differ in size and would contain varying sets of stories from the complete collection. - I: A unique annotated early 19th century copy of "Kirk vezir hikâyeleri" (The stories of forty queens), known as the "History of the forty viziers", containing an integral and literal translation of the first 160 pages of the Ottoman Turkish work. The translation and further annotations on Ottoman Turkish syntax and vocabulary are written in a (near) contemporary hand in brown ink. The marginal annotations were probably written around the 1820s by a French orientalist. This particular manuscript translation is unique and one of the very first French translation of these stories. Another adaptation of the stories, containing 19 stories and the introduction, was translated into French by François Pétis de la Croix as "L'histoire de la sultane de Perse et des vizirs", published in Paris in 1722. - II: The present copy is a complete example of the 1812 edition. It contains forty stories, including the introduction, the story of (and dedication to) Sultan Mahmud, the frame story, twenty stories of the viziers, and twenty stories of the women. - Both works are compiled by the French orientalist Henri-Nicolas Belleteste (Belletête, ca. 1746-1808) and published posthumously. Belleteste was educated in Oriental languages and in 1798 he was appointed government interpreter. He subsequently served as a military interpreter during the Egyptian Campaign led by Napoleon Bonaparte (1798-1801). He published an Arabic vocabulary for military use and together with French orientalist Jean-Daniel Kieffer (1767-1833), Belleteste translated the Bulletins de la Grande Armée into Turkish for Napoleon's campaigns from 1805 to 1807. He had taken on the project of translating a collection of Turkish stories, entitled in French "Les Quarante Vizirs" (the forty viziers), allegedly from a manuscript found in Egypt. Unfortunately, he died unexpectedly at the age of 30 in 1808, thus leaving the work unfinished. Nevertheless, an edition of the Ottoman Turkish text Belleteste was translating was published in 1812, expertly printed in Arabic characters by the French Imprimerie Impériale, of which the present two works are examples. - I: With the integral manuscript translation of the text into French in a contemporary (ca. 1820s) hand in brown ink in the margins. Front wrapper detached, spine damaged, edges frayed, lacking the back wrapper and the last 96 pages of the work. - II: Without the frequently missing 48 pp. of Belleteste's unfinished French translation. Wrappers are slightly stained and slightly damaged, mainly around the spine and the edges, without affecting the integrity of the binding. The text has generous, uncut margins, thus the edges are slightly frayed. The custom-made case is slightly scuffed around the corners and edges. Otherwise in good condition. - Overall, these works present an extraordinary example of early 19th century Arabic printing by the French Imprimerie Impériale together with a unique manuscript translation of the text of the "history of the forty Viziers", into French by an unidentified early 19th-century orientalist. Atabey 908 (incomplete). Chauvin VIII, p. 18, no. 52. Zenker I, 729. Brunet 17781. Gay/Lemonnier I, 718. Not in Blackmer.
