Orientalia 9
The Islamic World - June 2019
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Three manuscripts and twenty-seven printed books on the Islamic World, spanning Arabia and the Gulf, Turkey, Iran, and India.
One manuscript was looted from Lucknow during the 1857 mutiny (Item 3), another is a seventeenth century Persian dictionary (5), and the third, an important sixteenth century encyclopaedia (23).
The printed books include lithographed texts from Bombay and Helsinki (Items 6, 13, 29), a rare Turkmen historical text (1), the first appearance in print of Della Valle's travels (item 9), Gore Ouseley's copy of a seventeenth century Turkish grammar (item 16), a First World War map of Iraq showing the area between Baghdad and Kuwait (item 15), fine nineteenth-century lithographed Qur'ans from Lucknow and Istanbul with two later miniature Qur'ans (19-22), and the first Arabic book to be printed in England (27).
Seventy-one items, with the archive of George Keyt's muse, including original artwork, a rare collection of political essays by S.W.R.D. Bandarnaike, stunning colour plates of Sri Lanka's fish, an original sketch by George Claessen, a catalogue of Claessen's drawings inscribed by the artist, the scarce first edition of Ananda Coomaraswamy's classic study of Sri Lankan art, an early guide for investors in Ceylon, and stunning original photographs by Charles Scowen.
Forty-one items including W.O. Oldman's archive of ethnographic art, the first geological map of Singapore, the first literary Malay work printed, Cambodian lithographs of Angkor, the foremost journal on Indochina, three rare imprints from the Philippines, a manuscript Qur'an from Java, and an account of Brunei before Brooke.
One hundred and one items, including important Jesuit accounts of China, the first English translation of Confucius' Analects, a reference collection on Tibetan art, a rare guide to mahjong, a photographic record of the Battle of Shanghai, superb collotypes of imperial Chinese costume, and a broadside English translation from an embroidered Qing Dynasty silk panel.
India & Pakistan
Forty-five items, with a rare anonymous critique of British policy in India published at Calcutta in 1858, a photographic album honouring Princess Manharkunverba of Bhavnagar, an 1803 Calcutta newspaper, remarkable photographs of Henry Hope Crealock's Indian drawings, Charles D'Oyly's lithographs of Indian costumes, the first newspaper for Indian Army troops, a very rare account of the freedom fighter Veerapandiya Kattabomman (1760-1801), Nayak of Panjalamkurinchi, a stunning map of Gwalior, and a report for the Nizam on Hyderabadi relief work during the Great Famine 1876-8.
Fifty-five items, including a book bound for Sultan Abdulaziz, a secret history of Akbar's reign, a rare Jesuit account of Istanbul, the earliest comprehensive account of Sultan Mahmud II's savage repression of the Janissaries in 1826, fine lithographed views of al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, a pioneering survey of Turcoman coins, and Matthew Lumsden's monumental Persian grammar.
Thirty items, including a postcard from Mahatma Gandhi, an account of the 47th Duke of Connaught's Own Sikhs in the First World War, military maps of Karachi printed on linen, rare Russian edition of Rikki Tikki Tavi, and a stunning collection of drawings of the choultry of Tirumala Nayak at Madurai collected by Lady Hester Clive.
Thirty-five items on Malaysia, Singapore, and Borneo, with the first scientific journal published in the Straits Settlements, the first books printed at Malacca and Singapore, and the first book on British Malaya.
Seventeen items, including the first appearance of Jamal Qarshi's Persian abridgement of Jawhari's Arabic dictionary in print, rare Arabic imprints from Malta, and an 1885 lithographed Kurdish-Persian vocabulary printed in Iran.
The Languages of South Asia
Two hundred and nine items on the languages of South Asia, together with several major works on Tibetan. More than thirty languages are represented, with works spanning three centuries, from linguistics to literature and pedagogy to science and medicine.
FROM CONVERSION TO SUBVERSION:
250 years of the printed book in India