Abu Dhabi International Book Fair
Our fair selection this year ranges from medieval Arabic manuscripts and incunabula to modern literary archives, bringing together works that document the history of the Islamic and Arab world across seven centuries. We hope you enjoy our catalogue and, for those attending the fair, we look forward to seeing you in Abu Dhabi.
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PTOLEMAEUS, Claudius. Cosmographia.Vicenza : 1475
First edition of the most celebrated geographical treatise of classical antiquity, an edition of the greatest rarity and a monumental achievement of geographical knowledge.
The Cosmographia, or Geography, divided into eight books, was produced by Ptolemy in the second century CE and describes the known inhabited world (oikoumene), divided... Learn More -
CONTARINI, Ambrogio. Viaggio ad Ussum Hassan re de Persia.Venice : 1487
First edition of one of the most important early published accounts of Persia, which also contains the first European account of Russia, one of a handful of secular incunable travelogues in a vernacular language and one of an even smaller number published so soon after the trip's completion.
Ambrogio Contarini (1429-1499) travelled between... Learn More -
RECORDE, Robert. The Whetstone of Witte, which is the second Parte of Arithmetike:London : 1557
Rare first edition of the first English treatise on algebra, introducing the plus (+) and minus (-) signs to an English readership, and the first work in any language to use the modern equals sign (=). This copy has several early ownership inscriptions and includes a contemporary manuscript note describing two mathematical games.
In this... Learn More -
GALILEI, Galileo. Discorsi e Dimostrazioni Matematiche,Leiden : 1638
First edition of the first modern textbook of physics, "the first systematic attempt to extend the mathematical treatment of physics from statistics to kinematic" (Norman).
After his trial and at the encouragement of the Archbishop of Siena, Galileo assembled his life's work in physics. Forbidden to publish in Florence or Rome and unable to... Learn More -
GREGENTIOS OF HIMYARITIA (St Gregory of Taphar). General Introduction to the Book of Gregory of Himyaritia;[Russia : c.1690]
A rare Church Slavonic manuscript of the Dialexis by St Gregentios, Archbishop of Himyaritia, the ancient region spanning parts of modern Yemen, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. No manuscript copies have been traced in commerce, and only four examples of the printed Greek editions (1586; 1603) have appeared in the past 50 years.
Originally composed... Learn More -
LOCKE, John. Some Thoughts Concerning Education.London : 1693
First edition of Locke's major contribution to pedagogical theory, the seminal Enlightenment treatise on the subject: "His influence on educational thought and practice was enormous and is still very much with us in its fundamental outlook and method" (Edwards, p. 501).
Locke judged his own, impeccably orthodox education to be both... Learn More -
NEWTON, Isaac. Opticks: Or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light.London : 1704
First edition, first issue, an exceptionally fresh and unrestored example. This copy comes from the family library of John Evelyn, a fellow of the Royal Society alongside Newton for more than 30 years, and the author of its first published book.
As with many books from the Evelyn family library, this copy bears an ink pressmark on the... Learn More -
LEIBNIZ, Gottfried Wilhelm von. "Explication de l'arithmétique binaire."Paris : 1705
First edition of this momentous volume of the journal of the Académie Royale des Sciences, containing Leibniz's first published exposition of binary arithmetic, the conceptual foundation of the electronic computer industry.
Binary notation reduces all numbers to expressions involving only 0 and 1. It was a topic that had interested Leibniz... Learn More -
BERKELEY, George. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowlege [sic].Dublin : 1710
First edition of the author's major work, "the classic exposition of [Berkeley's] philosophy of immaterialism as an antidote to infidelity" (ODNB), in which he famously puts forward the idea that "no object can exist without a mind to conceive it". Part II of the work was lost while still in manuscript form.
Although Berkeley's works did... Learn More -
NEWTON, Isaac. The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.London : 1729
First edition in English of the "greatest work in the history of science", which produced a general revolution in human thought (PMM). First published in Latin in 1687, the Principia outlined in mathematical terms the principles of gravity, time, force, and motion. "Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler had certainly shown the way; but where they... Learn More -
QUR'AN; SALE, George (trans.). The Koran, Commonly called The Alcoran of Mohammed, Translated into English immediately from the Original Arabic;London : 1734
First edition of the first English translation of the Qur'an direct from the Arabic, the basis of all subsequent English editions for the next hundred years. Sale's edition was lauded by such figures as Gibbon and Voltaire and remained a valued piece of Middle Eastern scholarship until well into the 20th century.
George Sale (c.1696-1736)... Learn More -
ADLER, Jacob Georg Christian. Museum Cuficum Borgianum Velitris.Rome : 1782
First edition of this well-illustrated study of early Arabic coins in Kufic script - "one of the works which traditionally mark the birth of Arabic palaeography" (D'Ottone) - describing and illustrating the celebrated collection of antiquities formed by Cardinal Stefano Borgia (1731-1804).
Jacob Georg Christian Adler (1756-1834) studied... Learn More -
DANTE ALIGHIERI. The Vision; or, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.London : 1814
First complete edition of Cary's translation, rare first issue, with uncancelled title pages. Often regarded as the finest translation of Dante of the Romantic era, the privately printed work was produced in a diminutive format and type to reduce Cary's costs. Initial sales were slow, but 1,000 copies sold in the months after Coleridge championed... Learn More -
AUSTEN, Jane. Northanger Abbey: and Persuasion.London : 1818
First edition of Austen's final published work, pairing Northanger Abbey, probably the first full-length novel she wrote, with Persuasion, her last completed novel. Her brother Henry's biographical notice, dated 13 December 1817, is the first acknowledgement in print of Jane Austen as the author of her six novels.
Austen wrote Northanger... Learn More -
POLIDORI, John. The Vampyre; A Tale.London : 1819
First edition, the earliest obtainable issue of the first modern vampire novel. "Although by no means the first appearance of the vampire in European literature, Polidori's tale established the prototype later developed in Sheridan Lefanu's Carmilla and Bram Stoker's Dracula" (ODNB).
The outlines of The Vampyre were sketched out by Lord... Learn More -
SAVARY, Anne-Jean-Marie-René. Tārīkh-i BūnābartahAlexandria : 1249 H / 1833 CE
Rare Ottoman Turkish edition of this French account of Napoleon's political and military career - the second biographical work on Napoleon printed in the Middle East, and the first of four books issued by the short-lived Palace Press in Alexandria. We have traced only one institutional copy outside Turkey, at SOAS.
Like the Bulaq Press in... Learn More -
JAZULI, Muhammad al-. Dalā'il al-khairāt ("The Guide of Good Deeds").Istanbul : 1260 H (1844-45 CE)
Rare lithographed edition, in an attractive contemporary Turkish binding and with two views of Mecca and Medina, of this famous collection of prayers for the Prophet Muhammad.
Muhammad al-Jazūli (d. 1456 CE) was a Moroccan Sufi saint of the Shadhili order and a sharif (descendant of Muhammad). Dalā'il al-khairāt gathers litanies and... Learn More -
EUCLID - BYRNE, Oliver. The First Six Books of The Elements of Euclid In Which Coloured Diagrams and Symbols are Used Instead of Letters for the Greater Ease of Learners.London : 1847
First edition of one of the most lavish maths books ever produced, with a visual style which presaged both Bauhaus and Mondrian's De Stijl movement. In her survey, Friedman deemed Byrne's work "a triumph of colour printing" (p. 19).
Oliver Byrne (1810-1880) had been teaching mathematics for around 15 years by 1847 - experience which... Learn More -
MUHAMMAD. Shajarah al-Sharīfah. Tarikh Al-Hulafa Al-Rashidin[Most likely Cairo or Istanbul, : c.1850]
A striking family tree of the Prophet Muhammad, accompanied by a text on the caliphs concluding with the Ottoman sultan Abdulmejid I (1839–61). Embellished with hand-painted gilt decoration that gives it the appearance of a manuscript, it is presented here in an exceptionally unusual contemporary binding, now sensitively restored.
The... Learn More -
MELVILLE, Herman. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale.New York : 1851
First US edition, in the first issue cloth binding (BAL's "A" state, with publisher's device on the covers and brown-orange endpapers), an attractively preserved copy. The US edition was the first to appear under the familiar title and contains 35 passages and the epilogue omitted from the slightly earlier British edition.
Moby-Dick was... Learn More
