8vo. xx, 142 pp., [3], double columns, publisher’s original wrappers, only lightly rubbed round edges, title printed in red on spine & front cover, Unopened, browned paper, otherwise clean & very good condition, Institut Français de Damas, first edition, 1954.

Synopsis

Henri Sauvaire (1849-1896), French scholar who served as a Consul in Damascus and Casablanca. He was a leading photographer and numismatic collector. He spent the last years of his life writing on Arab culture. In 1864 he embarked on translating into French the Description de Damas by Abd al-Basit al-Amawi who lived in Damascus at the end of the Mamluk period and the beginning of the Ottoman. The book later appeared after Sauvaire’s with the help of Barbier de Meynard. This is the first index ever published of the French translation.