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35 JERVIS READ, S. H. A Provisional Check-List of the Birds of Iran. Tehran: Tehran University Printing Press, 1958 First and sole edition, inscribed by the author on the English title page verso to the distinguished East German ornithologist Dr Wolfgang Makatsch: “For our first meeting in Berlin, 1959, but not the last, 02/ix/59”. This scarce guidebook is not held by the British Library and has only 10 listings on WorldCat and Library Hub; this is a particularly well-preserved copy. Simon Holcombe Jervis Read (1922–1989) was a British soldier and spy, a member of the Special Operations Executive and recipient of the Military Cross for service in Burma during the Second World War. He conducted espionage work in Iran and East Germany at the end of the war. In Iran his keen interests in hunting and ornithology permitted him to travel widely in the country, concealing his espionage work under sanction from the University of Tehran to research birds in Iran. This work represents a ground-breaking effort to record Iran’s avifauna, which up to that time had only been covered by a handful of naturalist-explorers, and is the first attempt in English to provide Iranian names for species. Jervis Read was transferred to the Secret Intelligence Service in West Berlin in 1959, where this inscription indicates that he first met Makatsch. Wolfgang Makatsch (1906–1983) was himself a prominent ornithologist and egg collector, amassing one of the largest collections in Germany during his lifetime. The connection between the two ornithologists led to Makatch attracting the suspicions of the East German secret police. In 1960 Jervis Read wrote to Makatsch proposing that they exchange eggs through British military channels, but the letter found its way, via a double agent, into the hands of the Stasi, and Makatsch was dogged by a series of investigations by the notorious secret police for some years afterwards. Octavo. Original tan wrappers, lettered in black in English and Farsi. A near- fine copy, light toning to spine and edges, front leaf tipped in to front panel verso to repair short closed tear to leaf, otherwise in excellent condition. £875 [158943]
36 KATIP ÇELEBI; HERBELOT, Barthelémy d’. Bibliothèque orientale. The Hague: J. Neaulme & N. van Daalen, 1777–79 best edition of the first encyclopaedia of islam First published in 1697, this revised and expanded edition of d’Herbelot’s monumental work is “generally considered the best” ( Arcadian Library , p. 238), containing supplements by J. J. Reiske, “undoubtedly the best Arabist in Germany” (ibid.), Leiden professor H. A. Schultens, and other pre-eminent 18th- century orientalists. The Bibliothèque orientale was “the first encyclopaedia of Islam” (Stroumsa, p. 131) and “one of the landmarks in Arabic studies” (Atabey). Much of its material was adapted from the Kashf al- Zunun , a 17th-century Arabic work by Ottoman scholar Katip Çelebi. The Kashf al-Zunun was “the first comprehensive dictionary of bibliography of the Islamic world”, describing some 15,000 books in Arabic, Persian and Turkish, but it did not itself appear in print until the mid-19th century (Kalin, p. 440).
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sharjah international book fair
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