Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, March 1885Various
History
Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, March 1885
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals
MR. C. E. PASCOE has issued a prospectus on the publication of
English books in America. He says in effect that, though the lack of
international copyright is one reason why English authors derive but
little profit from the sale of their works in America, another and
graver reason is, that as a class, they are in ignorance of the means
for getting the best out of existing conditions. The usual method of
procedure is for the English publisher to make proposals to an American
publisher, or for the representative of an American firm in London to
submit proposals to his principals in the United States. Mr. Pascoe
points to the danger of losing a lucrative sale that this method
entails. His prospectus, which is accompanied by letters from American
publishers and some well-known English authors, is worth attention. Mr.
Pascoe's address is 6 Southfields Road, West Hill, Wandsworth, S. W.
* * * * *
AN early and hitherto unknown Arabic work has lately been added to
the Museum Library. It is entitled “Kitāb al-Mohabbir”, and contains
various historical notices and traditions relating to the ancient
Arabs and to the time of Mohammed and his immediate successors. The
author, Abu Sa'id al-Hasan al-Sukkari, lived in the third century
of the Hijrah, and is well known as one of the earliest editors and
commentators of the old poets, but the present work appears somehow to
have escaped notice; it is neither mentioned in the Fihrist, nor by Ibn
Khallikan or Soyuti. The two last-named authors state that Al-Sukkari
died A.H. 275; but according to Ibn Kāni' (Leyden Catalogue, vol. ii.
p. 8) he lived on to A.H. 290. The present work would show that the
former date is decidedly wrong; for it contains a brief sketch of
the Abbasides brought down by Al-Sukkari himself to the accession of
Al-Mo'tadid, _i.e._, A.H. 279.
* * * * *
AMONG other recent additions to the Arabic collection, the following
are especially deserving of the attention of scholars: the earliest
extant history of the Moslem conquest of Egypt, Africa, and Spain,
by Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam, who died A.H. 257, a twelfth century copy;
“Zubdat al-Tawarikh,” a history of the Seljuk-dynasty, written shortly
after its extinction, about A.H. 620, by Sadr al-Din Abul Hasan Ali
Ibn Abul Fawaris Nasir Husaini, a fine and apparently unique copy of
the thirteenth century; “Kitab al-Osul,” an extensive and hitherto
unknown work on Arabic grammar by one of the earliest writers on the
subject, Ibn al-Sarraj, who died A.H. 316, handsomely written, with all
vowels, A.H. 651; a fine and valuable copy of the “Makamat al-Hariri,”
written by a grandson of the author, A.H. 557 (_i.e._, forty years
after Hariri's death), and consequently earlier than any copy of that
standard work known to exist in European libraries.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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