Lot 5

[India]

Ajaib-o-gharaib or the Wonders of the World

£3,024

Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs

Auction: 28 September 2022 from 10:00 BST

Description

by Mehomed Surfurraz Khan alias Ghasi Khan, late Surrishtedar in the office of Superintendent Eastern Jamna Canal. Delhi: Moortuzavee Press, 1867. Folio (39 x 23.5cm), recent orange half sheep, [2] 88 [1] pp., lithographed throughout, title and dedication both partly in English, otherwise text entirely in Urdu/Hindustani, profusely illustrated with depictions of animals (real and mythical), plants, human physiognomy and characters, decorative vegetal borders and chapter-headings, browning, tears and repairs to outer leaves, final leaf laid down with only one side visible, a few peripheral nicks and chips elsewhere

Footnote

Note:

A highly decorative mid-19th-century Indian contribution to the ancient aja'ib genre, no other copy traced in commerce or in libraries. Originating in medieval Arabic and Persian literature and translating as 'marvels' or 'wonders', ajai'b literature is ‘a type of largely geographical or cosmographical writing with an emphasis on those real or imaginary phenomena in the physical world which challenge human understanding’ (Meisami & Starkey, Encyclopaedia of Arabic Literature, vol. 1., p. 65). The dedicatees of the work are Colonel W. E. Morton, secretary to the governor of the North-West Frontier Province, and Colonel G. W. Hamilton, commissioner, Delhi Division.