8vo. 180 pp., Arabic text, titles in French and Arabic, publisher’s original wrappers, soiled covers and rubbed edges, spine professionally repaired, unopened, upper and lower covers glued to endpapers, pages slightly browned; otherwise copy in general good condition, Typographie Bastide, Algeria, 1863.

Synopsis

A presentation copy signed by the author and dated 1868. A rare Arabic book printed in Algeria during the colonial period. The Arabic was used in Algeria under the July Monarchy and the Second Empire. The occupation authorities, who were particularly anxious to have competent interpreters, chose to encourage the dissemination of the Arabic language among the French and, at the same time, that of the French language among the Arabs. In addition to the creation of language courses and schools, the French authorities provided aid for the publication of textbooks: until 1840, all Arabic works published in Algiers came out of the presses of the Government Printing Office and, in the 1850s, a small number received financial support from the War Department in the form of subscriptions. The composition of reference works was also encouraged and thus was published, in the Moniteur de l’Algérie, on December 20, 1852, a ministerial decree instituting two prizes of 5,000 francs each, intended to reward authors of French-Arabic and Arabic-French dictionaries, as there were hardly any. A commission met two years later, but no prizes were given.
This manual entitled in Arabic As-Sira al-Saniyya fi Akhbar Muluk al-Dawla al-Saniyya al- Faransawiya, was published under the supervision of Auguste Martin. The text is a chronological history of the kings of France and their reigns; it was financed by the Ministry of War. It should be noted that the period from the early conquest of Algeria in 1830 until 1870 witnessed a spread of Arabic schools and early Arabic printed books under colonial supervision in Algeria.