Perfumed Garden, Signed (2 results)

Hardcover (Original Cloth). Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: As New. Second Edition. Signed by Author. Signed by author. Size: Octavo (standard book size). Text body is clean, and free from previous owner annotation, underlining and highlighting. Binding is tight, covers and spine fully intact. Dust Jacket is in as new condition, apart from normal shop shelf wear - contains no tears or chips or other damage. All edges clean, neat and free of foxing. Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Under 1 kilogram. Category: Fiction; Signed by Author. ISBN: 0454002793. ISBN/EAN: 9780454002799. All our pictures shown here are of the actual item, not stock photos. Inventory No: 1971. For further info on this title, click on the "Contact Seller" button within this listing. We will try to reply within 24 hours. Otherwise you can order right now (inclusive of shipping options) from the "Add to Basket" button to the right.

Oblong folio (290 x 220 mm). 53, (1) ff. Preserving the inked tracing sheet used to lay out the finispiece. Black maghribi script within fine double black rules, headings and selected phrases in pink and blue. Frontispiece and terminal title in black, pink and blue. Contemporary thin marbled card boards. Prepared for a bilingual Arabic-French edition, this dated Maghribi manuscript was not copied as a routine witness to the text, but was deliberately laid out for parallel translation, with substantial blank space reserved to accompany the Arabic with a French version. This belongs to the small group of North African copies that reflect the 19th century passage of "Al-rawd al-'atir" from manuscript circulation into the hands of French Arabists, collectors, and editors. - What distinguishes the present manuscript is the uncommon assurance with which that purpose has been carried through. The page was planned with precision, the Arabic text copied in a clear and regular Maghribi hand, and headings as well as key phrases are picked out in pink and blue, so that the book retains the appearance of a finished presentation copy even while preserving the working function of a translation manuscript. It thus records not only the transmission of the text, but also the process by which it was made legible to a new francophone readership. The ornamental frontispiece and finispiece, executed in an elegant Maghribi mabsut, further set it apart from more utilitarian copies, and the survival of the tracing sheet used for the finispiece preserves a rare witness to the actual manufacture. Together with the careful mise-en-page, these features make this volume an unusually self-aware and well-preserved example of a translation-oriented North African manuscript of the later 19th century. - Nefzawi wrote the "The Perfumed Garden" in the 15th century for his patron Muhammad ibn 'Awana Zawawi. The book provides sexual advice and remedies in the guise of folk tales resembling those in the Thousand and One Nights. It first received recognition in France through manuscripts which became available after the French occupation of North Africa, and various translations were made in the half of the 18th century. - Paper slightly browned and occasionally soiled, with edge wear and small tears, more noticeable to the opening ornamental leaves and outer margins; binding worn. Altogether a legible and visually appealing manuscript. - Cf. Cheikh Nefzaoui, Le parfum des prairies (le jardin parfumé): manuel d'érotologie arabe (Paris, Jean Fort, 1935).