Lot 85
£4,536
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs
Auction: 8 February 2023 at 10:00 GMT
all lithographed throughout, with text in Urdu:
1) Kitab Mahabharat manzum bi'l-tasawir [The Mahabharata, in verse, illustrated]. [Lucknow?]: Munshi Nawal Kishore, c.1880. Tall 8vo (25.8 x 15.5cm), contemporary red patterned boards, red calico backstrip, [2] 302 pp. (first leaf possibly a retained original wrapper), text in four columns, illustrated throughout in the style of Indian miniature painting, paper browned and somewhat brittle, occasional small tape-repairs to lower margins, last few leaves (from pp. 293/4) with central longitudinal crease and light paper disruption to gutter;
2) Ramayan nazm Urdu [The Ramayana, in Urdu]. Kanpur: Munshi Nawal Kishore, c.1880. 2 volumes in 1, tall 8vo (27 x 18cm), original wrappers (present for each volume), 1-2 1-6 1-158 3-4, 1-2 1-114 3-4 pp. (i.e. wrappers counted in pagination), text in four columns, illustrated throughout in the style of Indian miniature painting, decorative title-pages and section-titles, ownership inscription 'Chundoo Lall, Delhi 18/11/[18]86' to front wrapper, browning, front and rear wrapper damp-stained along edges, damp-related loss to lower fore corner of first 6 leaves;
3) Ghiyas al-Lughat. [Lucknow]: Munshi Nawal Kishore, c.1875. 2 volumes in 1, large 4to recent boards, 4, 258, 260 pp., 2 decorative floral title-pages, similar head- and tailpieces, some 10 illustrations in the text including a depiction of the Zodiac (volume 2 p. 188), large folding map of Asia (bound in upside-down), staining to pp. 100-108, marginal damp-staining to final few leaves;
4) Divan-i Ghalib, Urdu. Kanpur: Munshi Nawal Kishore, c.1880. Tall 8vo (25.5 x 16cm), original wrappers, 104 pp., stitching perished, leaves loose in quires, contemporary Indian bookseller's ink-stamp to front wrapper;
5) Divan-i Zafar, c.1880. Tall 8vo, 72 pp., decorative title-page, lacking wrappers if issued, stitching perished and leaves loose in quires, possibly lacking text at end;
and one other (Nuskhat 'Aql va-Shu'ur, 1863)
Note:
The Nawal Kishore Press, founded at Lucknow in 1858 by Hindu entrepreneur Nawal Kishore (1836-1895), 'grew into the largest Indian-owned printing and publishing firm in South Asia. Supported by colonial patronage, the firm published an estimated 5,000 titles in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Sanskrit and Hindi during Nawal Kishore's lifetime, while it also served as an intellectual hub for scholars, poets and literati. As one observer noted: "No other press in India was fortunate to have such a large number of huffaz, scholars, historians, writers and poets as were gathered simultaneously at this press"' (Ulrike Stark, 'Calligraphic Masterpiece, Mass-Produced Scripture: Early Qur'an Printing in Colonial India', in Reese, ed., Manuscript and Print in the Islamic Tradition, 2002, p. 158). Compiled in India in the 1820s by Ghiyas al-Din Muhammad Rampuri, the Ghiyas al-Lughat is considered 'one of the [most] authoritative dictionaries of the Persian language' (Encyclopaedia Iranica). It was probably first printed in Lucknow in 1847-8, and shaped the Persian lexicographical tradition during the 19th and 20th centuries.