4to. 176 pp., 4 pp., index, Arabic lithographic text within borders, double column per page, modern hard back binding, some foxing, few ink annotations in margins, traces of few worm holes on top corner of first few pages not affecting text, al-Matba’a al-’Adabiyya, Beirut, 1878.

Synopsis

Salim Anhuri’s productive life spanned over fifty years. He was born in Damascus to a family of several gifted literary men. He started writing in response to a literary competition sponsored by Oscar II, king of Sweden and Norway, when he submitted his lengthy and researched Book of ‘Ukaz.
Due to Ottoman oppression he travelled to Cairo in 1878. He was one of several other Syrian immigrants who established Mir’at al-Sharq (Mirror of the East), as a bi-weekly political and literary newspaper. He was anti European and due to the the pressure upon him by Egyptian politicians affiliated the the Europeans, he relinquished Mir’at al-Sharq after having published fifteen issues.
Upon his return to Damascus he worked at Dimashq Arabic-Turkish political weekly. In addition to journalism Anhuri was a prolific writer. During his lifetime he authored a dozen more books in both verse and prose.
The subjects which occupied much of Anhuri’s attention dealt with the revival of Arabic language and literature. The above work is one of his great contribution to Arabic Lexicography.