A Failed Attempt to Revise Arabic Typesetting
The Gospel of Matthew in Arabic, Printed with All the Vowels, According to the Simplified Method of the Revd. Jules Ferrette... with an Introductory Explanation of the Method Both in Its Mechanical and Philological Part
Notes: A proposal for a new design for Arabic type to solve the problem of vowels, which are placed above or below the regular line of type. According to Ferrette, a protestant missionary in Damascus, "The Arabic typography was so complicated in its mechanism, so slow in its working, so unreadable in its products, that the Arab nation has been left hitherto almost in the same state as if typography had not been invented at all." Ferrette's idea was to extend the horizontal connecting line between letters with a separate sort and to incorporate the vowel marks into this extension. His idea did not catch on. He explains his ideas in an English-language introduction.
Most copies of this book have an 1863 imprint from W. M. Watts on the title page. This copy bears a Samuel Bagster and Sons imprint without a date. It is possible that this is a second edition, but it seems more likely that Bagster ordered copies with their imprint to sell in the theological bookstore they operated. The title page may even be a cancel. The Bagster issue is scarce with just one OCLC holding, with the date transposed to 1836.
viii, 118 pages. Marketed in advertising as a foolscap octavo; 4-1/4 by 6-3/4 inches.
Edition + Condition: First edition, Bagster issue (?). Spine a bit faded, else very good. Early ownership name dated 1874 at the beginning of the Arabic text. Withdrawn stamp from the Redemptorist Community in Dublin on the endpaper prior to the English text.
Publication: London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, [1863].
Item No: #361695
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