Though recognized in the latter part of the 19th century as "the
greatest Orientalist in Britain," the Geneva-born Anglican priest,
Solomon Caesar Malan (1812-1894) was such an extraordinary person
that he has defied any scholarly person to write a critical account
of his life and works. Consequently, almost no one has written
anything critically appreciative and insightful about him since his
death. A polymath with extraordinary talent for languages and
sketching, among other specialized skills, Malan focused much of
his life on assessing biblical translations in ancient Middle
Eastern and East Asian languages, while also producing English
translations of alternative expressions of Christianity found in
north Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. A life-long interest of
his was comparing the proverbs of his name-sake, King Solomon, with
proverbial wisdom from as many cultures and languages as he could
find. That interest culminated in a three-volume work that
enshrined his achievements realized through his capacities as a
hyperpolyglot within the context of a search for shared wisdom
across many cultures. In this volume, produced by a team of
collaborators from a wide range of scholarly interests and varying
expertise, we have presented a critically assessed account of the
life and key works produced by Solomon Caesar Malan. In fact, it is
the first work of its kind on Malan written since his death, now
having occurred more than 125 years ago. Readers will journey
through an itinerary that starts in Geneva before it became part of
Switzerland, moves to Great Britain, and ultimately into one of the
colleges in Oxford. Subsequently, it moves us into an exploration
of the journey of his life that involved a huge range of places,
people, and languages: starting in Calcutta, touching unusual
figures from Hungary, India, and China. Those seminal experiences
led Malan into studies of languages related to even more distant
cultural worlds in Central, Southeastern, and East Asia. The
historians among us have delved into Malan's life in Calcutta,
Geneva, and Dorsetshire, while others have explored the nature of
his hyperpolyglossia, and tested the quality of his understanding
of ancient literature in classical languages that include Chinese,
Manchurian, Sanskrit and Tibetan. Notably, Malan's personal library
was so unique, that when he donated it to his alma mater at Oxford
University, it became one of the major bibliographic precedents for
what is now the Oriental Division in the Bodleian Libraries. Yet,
when one follows the twists and turns of his life's journey, and
the surprises that occur from documenting the history and content
of the Malan Library as well as critically analysing aspects of his
opus magnum, Original Notes on the Book of Proverbs (1889-1893), we
believe both general readers and scholarly specialists will be
entranced.
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