Product Description
Wolff, Joseph; NARRATIVE OF A MISSION TO BOKHARA, IN THE YEARS 1843-1845; to Ascertain the Fate of Colonel Stoddard and Captain Conolly. 4th edition, London: John Parker, 1846. Octavo, pp. xxviii, 515, portrait frontispiece.
The work is complete and in the original green blind stamped cloth with gilt titles, spine lightly faded and worn with archival restoration at head and tail, front inner hinge nicely tightened. Text is clean. Original owner opened the uncut pages for reading and two signatures were crudely opened resulting in a tear to the outer upper margin with lose of a short area of text at upper right corner in one signature. Presentation copy signed on half title in three languages by Wolff to his friend Captain Kirkman. Over all good condition.
A scholar and traveller Wolff (1795-1862) was born in Weilersbach, near Bamberg, Germany. He was Jewish but converted to Christianity early in life. Wolff; learned both Arabic and Muslim and travelled extensively in Asia doing missionary work. Wolff was also commissioned by a committee headed by Captain John Grover to discover the fate of the two British officers Stoddart and Conolly and return with news to England. He discovered that they had been beheaded at the command of the Emir of Bukhara (Usbekistan), Nasrullah Khan, in 1842. Between 1845 and 1852 his account of his mission went through seven editions.
