GLADWIN, Francis. The Persian Moonshee. Calcutta, printed: re-printed in London, at the Oriental Press, by Wilson and Co. (The Persian Types cast by Vincent Figgins), 1801.
Three parts in one volume, large 4to. Uncut in contemporary marbled boards with 20th-century brown crushed morocco back with red lettering-piece; pp. [vi], 106; 74; 82, 2 (publisher's advertisements), 32 engraved plates of Persian and Arbaic script; wear to extremities of the boards, occasional spotting, front fly-leaf with repair to gutter; late 19th-century ownership inscription Osias Edelman in Zubow bei Trembowla (Western Ukraine), with inscription in Arabic letters to front fly-leaf; bookplate of Charles E. Lawrence of New York inside front cover.
First published in Calcutta in 1795 this Persian Scribe is a hands-on introduction to the Persian language, writing and correspondence for members of the East India Company and philologists, with many examples from the rich Persian literature. Francis Gladwin (died 1813) was a 'lexicographer and prolific translator of Persian literature into English. He served in the Bengal Army and later, owing to his remarkable linguistic ability, became one of the three professors of Persian at Fort William College in Calcutta in 1800, the year of its establishment. He was a founding member of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and carried out his scholarly works and translations under the patronage of Warren Hastings … Gladwin’s translation of ʿAṭṭār’s Pand-nāma (as A Compendium of Ethics, Calcutta, 1788), which he erroneously attributed to Saʿdi, is included in his famous Persian Moonshee (Calcutta, 1795), which is itself a collection of various pieces of work' (Encyclopaedia Iranica, online).
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