8vo. lxxii, 472 pp., engraved folding frontispiece map, modern half-calf, copy in very good condition, George Wightman, London, first edition, 1834.

Synopsis

Eli Smith (1801–1857) was an American Protestant missionary and scholar. He graduated from Yale in 1821 and from Andover Theological Seminary in 1826. He worked in Malta until 1829, and afterwards in company with H. G. O. Dwight, travelled through Armenia and Georgia to Persia. They published their observations, “Missionary Researches in Armenia” in its first edition in 1833.
Eli Smith settled in Beirut in 1833. Along with Edward Robinson, he made two trips to the Holy Land, acting as an interpreter for Robinson in his quest to identify and record Biblical place names in Palestine. He is known for bringing the first printing press with Arabic typeface to Syria. He went on to pursue the task which he considered to be his life’s work: translation of the Bible into Arabic. Although he died before completing the task, the work was completed by C. V. Van Dyck of the Syrian Mission and published between 1860 and 1865.