DR. GRANT AND THE MOUNTAIN NESTORIANS
1853. Item #74482
LAURIE, Thomas. DR. GRANT AND THE MOUNTAIN NESTORIANS. With portrait, map of the country, illustrations, etc. Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1853. Illustrated: frontispiece of Dr. Grant copied from a daguerreotype, fold-out map, 8 full-page wood engravings, nd three text illustrations. xii,[13]-418 pp., + [6] pp. pub. adv. 8vo., brown cloth, gilt-stamped title to spine. Ex-library; bookplate to front pastedown, a small blind-stamped seal on t.p. and on p. 21, and no other marks. Contemporary ink ownership (I.W. Putnam, 1854) on front pastedown. Cloth is sunned at spine and along top-edges of boards, with some superficial rubbing to sides, heel and crown, and some light damp-spotting to upper board. There is a one-inch closed tear to the cloth near the bottom-edge of the lower joint. Light foxing to frontispiece, with offsetting to fly-leaf and title page. A few creased text leaves, but generally clean and crisp within. A very good copy of a rare title. Asahel Grant (American, 1807-1844), physician, was a Presbyterian missionary to the Nestorians, survivors of an ancient Christian sect who inhabited the district of Oroomiah in (what was then) western Persia and the Kurdistan mountains. Grant believed them to be the remnant of the lost tribes of Israel and set forth his reasons in his own book, The Nestorians, published in 1841. He established, with much difficulty, a mission at Ashitha for the mountain Nestorians. However, it was brought to an end in 1843 when the Turks in conjunction with the Kurds attacked the Nestorians and thousands of them were slain. Grant escaped to Mosul, where he ministered to the refugees until, in the spring of 1844, he took sick and died. (D.A.B.).
Price: $250.00