1923 Rare Limited Edition bound in Morocco - Richard Burton's KASÎDAH Of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi.
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Author: BURTON Richard (Sir). Hâjî Abdû El -Yezdî.
Title: The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi: translated and annotated by his friend and pupil F. B.
Language: Text in English.
Publisher: Portland, Maine: Thomas Mosher, 1923. 12th edition, one of 925 limited copies printed on Van Gelder paper.
Size : 7.5 " X 4 ".
Pages : xv-124 pages.
Binding: Attractive and very good, near fine, full light grey morocco leather binding, finely bound (hinges fine, overall slightly scuffed as shown) under a protective mylar cover. Upper edge gilt.
Content: Near fine content (bright, tight, and clean - as shown, some pages still unopened).
Illustrations: Complete with the beautiful frontispiece portrait.
The book: A very attractive limited edition of The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1880) -- a long English-language poem written by "Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî", a pseudonym of the true author, Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890), a well-known British Arabist and explorer. In a note to the reader, Burton claims to be the translator of the poem, to which he gives the English title "Lay of the Higher Law." It is thus a pseudotranslation, pretending to have had an original Persian text, which never existed. The Kasidah is essentially a distillation of Sufi thought in the poetic idiom of that mystical tradition; Burton had hoped to bring Sufist ideas to the West.
The translator: Sir Richard Francis Burton KCMG FRGS (19 March 1821 – 20 October 1890) was a British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer, and diplomat. He was famed for his travels and explorations in Asia, Africa and the Americas, as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures. According to one count, he spoke 29 European, Asian and African languages.