[OTTOMAN ZOOLOGY / BEAUTIFUL COLOR PLATE BOOKS] Musavver tarîf-i hayvanât. [i.e. Illustrated description of animals]

MEHMED EMIN, (Turkish traveler, ethnographer, and author), (18th-19th century), Matbaa-i Osmaniye [i.e. Osmaniye Printing House]., Dersaadet (Constantinople), [AH 1310] = 1892.

Original illustrated boards. Rebacked and letter gilt to spine. Small 4to. (27 x 20 cm). In Ottoman script (Old Turkish with Arabic letters). 71 p., 24 numbered very attractive chromolithographed color plates, separated with tissue guards. A very good copy.

Early second edition of this one of the most beautiful zoology books printed in the Ottoman Empire, with complete very attractive chromolithograph plates. First edition in 1306 [AD 1889]. The second edition has one more plate.

In this work, which was originally prepared for children, the animal kingdom is mentioned and animal species are introduced. Very attractive 24 complete color plates depict animals that roam the land, fly in the air, and swim in the water.

Mehmed Emin was a Turkish traveler, ethnographer, and author. He belonged to a well-established family of silk merchants from Dagestan. He was educated in Marseille after his father opened a branch of the business there. Once back in Istanbul, Mehmed Emin's knowledge of French and his part ethnographic, part novelistic travel account of Central Asia -published in the Ottoman newspaper 'Tercüman-i Hakikat' with a foreword by Ahmed Midhat Efendi- won him the post of librarian in Abdülhamid II's imperial library at Yildiz Palace. Ottoman novel enthusiasts knew Mehmed Emin for his Jules Verne translations. However, his interest in the emerging fields of ethnography and zoology produced an illustrated account of nations (1891) and subsequently this encyclopedia of wildlife (1892).

Özege 14482.; We could find only three copies in OCLC 984497712, 977717755, 163509042.