John. A Memoir of the Rev. Henry Martyn ... Thirteenth Edition.

by SARGENT

£300 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

SARGENT, John. A Memoir of the Rev. Henry Martyn ... Thirteenth Edition. London: Seeley and Burnside. 1837. Small 8vo. Contemporary full calf, spine with raised bands and gilt-stamped red morocco lettering-piece; overall richly decorated in gilt and blind, all edges gilt; pp. [iii]-xii, 435, steel-engraved portrait frontispiece by Finden, wood-engraved vignette on title, bound without half-title; minimal rubbing to binding; light offsetting from endpapers, marginal spots to frontispiece and title; presentation inscription, dated 1838, on initial blank; a good copy, decoratively bound and a scarce title. First published in 1816, this is an account of a Christian missionary's life, activity and philosophical debates in Northern India and most importantly, Persia. The Truro-born missionary and translator Henry Martyn (1781-1812) was fluent in Arabic, Persian and Urdu, into which languages he translated biblical texts. In India 'he decided that Arabia and Persia would provide a more congenial environment, free of colonial restraints, to improve his translations of the Bible into the languages of the Islamic world. Having obtained leave to travel via Calcutta and Bombay, he left north India in October 1810. Martyn was proved correct, for the revised Persian manuscript of the New Testament was rapidly completed in 1811–12 in Shiraz, where he also engaged local scholars and Sufis in discussions about the nature and proofs of religious truth. He compiled two tracts in Persian in repl

• Binding: Hardcover

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