KITAB TAÂLIM AÂLAY ALATFAL ALSIGHAR [in Arabic].... - Lot 181 - Giquello

Lot 181
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1500 - 2000 EUR
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Result : 5 813EUR
KITAB TAÂLIM AÂLAY ALATFAL ALSIGHAR [in Arabic].... - Lot 181 - Giquello
KITAB TAÂLIM AÂLAY ALATFAL ALSIGHAR [in Arabic]. Malta (Church Missionary Society Press), 1832. In-12, 60 pp, paperback, mothballed cover, modern cardboard slipcase. A most rare Arabic work from the Arabic book press founded in Malta in 1825 by the Church Mission Society, an evangelical group founded in 1799 in England as the Society for Missions to Africa and the East. This teaching book for small children contains passages from the Bible, decorated with 27 woodcuts in the text: the first illustrated book to come out of this Arabic book workshop in Malta. This is probably the only copy known. G. J. Roper, Arabic printers in Malta, mentions (n°42) this book without having seen it or knowing its precise title. This Arabic book printing shop, the first one founded in Malta, was directed at its beginning by a Basel printer named August Kollner helped by John Vitto, an English typographer knowing Arabic characters. It started its activity, not without difficulties, in 1825. "At last, by May 1825, the first Arabic pages came of the press: primers and spelling-books, intended particularly for the American mission schools in Lebanon .." (Roper). Various Arabic books, which Roper accurately describes, were printed in this workshop until 1842. A number of problems, including inadequate circulation of prints, eventually led to serious financial difficulties and its closure. The Arabic typography disappeared from Malta for the rest of the 19th century.
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