Formerly Called Thamas Kuli Khan, The Present Emperor Of Persia. To Which Is Prefix'd A Short History Of The Moghol Emperors. At The End Is Inserted A Catalogue Of About Two Hundred Manuscripts In The Persic And Other Oriental Languages, Collected In The
The History of Nadir Shah Formerly Called Thamas Kuli Khan, The Present Emperor Of Persia. To Which Is Prefix'd A Short History Of The Moghol Emperors. At The End Is Inserted A Catalogue Of About Two Hundred Manuscripts In The Persic And Other Oriental Languages, Collected In The
Printed by W. Strahan, for the Author, 1742.
First edition. 8vo in fours. Contemporary calf, double gilt rules, edges speckled red. Engraved folding frontispiece portrait, widely margined and bound at its tail-edge as issued. Folding map showing the recently invaded Mughul Empire. A near fine, tall copy, the pages crisp and clean, a little wear to the corners, sometime neatly rebacked preserving the red morocco spine label.
An East India Company servant, Fraser spent ten years at its various outposts, learning the local vernacular and literary languages while he was there, amassing an important collection of manuscripts, coins and miniatures. He returned to England in 1740 and began to compose this history, the "first book in English treating of the Persian ruler Nadir Shah" (ODNB). The work offers a first hand account of contemporary events in the Persian Empire, as well as the first English publication of "historical texts and original documents translated from Persian by Fraser" (Idib).
Appended to the work is a catalogue of Fraser's collection of about two hundred manuscripts. "His claim that his forty-one 'Sanskerrit' manuscripts 'formed the first collection of that kind ever brought into Europe' (A catalogue of manuscripts, appended to Fraser, History of Nadir Shah, 379) appears to be valid", and the entire collection "was bought from his widow for the Radcliffe Library at Oxford; it was transferred to the Bodleian Library on 10 May 1872" (Idib).
PROVENANCE: "G. Granville" of Calwich Abbey, contemporary inscription and bookplate of Calwich Library to front pastedown.
Stock ID: 38256
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