MALCOLM, Sir John.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Histoire de la Perse, First edition in French of this "monumental work" by the diplomatist and administrator in India Sir John Malcolm (Wright, p. 8), originally published at London in two quarto volumes in 1815; this set presented in a highly attractive binding by the eminent French binder Joseph Thouvenin. The translation, by Pierre-Vincent Benoist, was continued from 1814 to 1820 by the eminent orientalist Louis-Matthieu Langlès, keeper of oriental manuscripts at the Bibliothèque Nationale and founding director of the Ecole des langues orientales vivantes in Paris. The "scapegrace and the scapegoat" of the very large family of a Scottish small farmer (Kaye, I, p. 5), the daring and adventurous Malcolm (1769-1833) made three diplomatic missions to Persia and on his third, in 1810, was received "with pomp and cordiality", developed a trusting relationship with the shah, and found time to introduce the potato to the country (known locally as "Malcolm's plum"). "His classic History of Persia, which appeared in 1815, brought him an honorary doctorate of laws from Oxford. Translated into French (1821), German (1830), and Persian (n.d.), the history was particularly valuable for contextualizing events surrounding his own time in Persia, and served as the standard western work for about a century" (ODNB).The binder Joseph Thouvenin is described by the distinguished Italian bibliographer Federico Macchi as having "achieved a reputation as a leading binder of his epoch... [whose] na

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