[EARLY AESOP / BILINGUAL ARABIC AND OTTOMAN TURKISH TEXT] Edebiyât ve hikâyât-i garibiyye-i Türkiyye ve Arabiyye [i.e., Literary and strange stories in Turkish and Arabic]

AESOP (REFI’, HAFIZ, Sark Matbaasi, Istanbul, AH 1291 = [1874].

Original very thin and fragile green wrappers. Cr. 8vo. (20 x 14 cm). In Ottoman script (Old Turkish with Arabic letters) and Arabic. 48 p. Slight chippings on extremities, wear to spine, occasional foxing on pages. Overall, a very good and well-preserved copy.

First and only edition of this early and extremely rare book containing 10 Aesop fables in Arabic along with their Ottoman Turkish translations, compiled by Mekteb-i Sultani (Galatasaray) High School Arabic teacher Hafiz Refi. It was prepared based on the first printed compilation of Aesop's fables in Turkish, together with their French translations titled “Choix de fables: Traduit en turc par un effendi de Constantinople et publiées avec une version française” compiled by Victor Letellier (1787-1859) in Paris, 1826.

The introduction of the book is in Arabic. This introduction starts with narrations of the prophets about science in general and Arabic science-themed apothegms. All of these are given with their Turkish translations by the author. After the introduction, written to teach Arabic at Galatasaray High School (Mekteb-i Sultânî), the book includes ten Aesop stories in Arabic with their Turkish translations. These ten stories are parallel to the stories in the first Turkish Aesop compilation, prepared by Victor Letellier and published in Paris, in 1826.

Özege 4577., Özdemir p. 19., As of December 2023, we couldn’t trace any copy in the OCLC and KVK.