8vo. xxv, 429 pp., half-title, title, original embossed cloth, faded & worn at spine, title gilt on spine, author’s presentation copy inscribed in English and Persian verso front cover and front end paper, light scattered foxing mainly to end leaves, otherwise copy in good condition, William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and London, fifth edition, 1848.

Synopsis

Joseph Wolff was a British missionary who converted from Judaism to Christianity. He travelled between 1821 and 1826 to Egypt, Sinai, Palestine, and Aleppo. In 1828 he began another journey visiting Egypt, Palestine, Turkey, Armenia, Khurassan, Bokhara and Kabul. He describes the countries he travelled into giving new information about the Moslems of Central Asia. Wolf continued his journey from Afghanistan into India, Egypt and Malta back to England.
In 1839 Stoddart had been sent to Bokhara to negotiate a treaty against a background of Anglo-Russian rivalry in Central Asia. In 1841 Connolly tried to join Stoddart, who had apparently been under confinement for some time. Both officers were beheaded, probably in 1842. This was what Wolff discovered who in 1843 he made a second journey to Bokhara to search for Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Stoddart. He escaped Bokhara after he knew that the Colonel was executed. In 1845 he published this work in two volumes in New York.
In 1821 he began “his extraordinary nomadic career as a missionary to the Jews of the Near East and central Asia. Between 1821 and 1826 he travelled as a missionary in Egypt, the Sinai, the Holy Land, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, and the Crimea.” (ODNB)
Bibliographical Reference: Blackmer, 1833 for first American edition 1845.