Inscribed by the author to Sultan Abdul Hamid II

[Giacometti, Georges]. La situation. Décembre 1876.

(Constantinople, Imprimperie Kevkeb-Charki, 1876).

8vo. 37, (1) pp. Giltstamped purple cloth with white moirée endpapers.

 7.500,00

Extremely rare anonymous pamphlet by the political writer Georges Giacometti about the political position of Turkey during the crisis of December 1876, after the outbreak of the Serbian-Ottoman War that would soon develop into the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. OCLC lists a single copy in public collections (British Library, not identifying the author).

Extremeties a little rubbed. Removed from the library of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, with traces of requisite marks and the author's handwritten inscription to front flyleaf: "A Sa Majesté Impériale / Hommage Respectueux de l'auteur. G. Giacometti".

Abdul Hamid II (1842-1918) was the last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire to exert effective contol over the fracturing state and also remembered as a poet, translator and one of the dynasty's greatest bibliophiles. While his passion for books is memorialized by the many precious donations he gave to libraries all over the world and which mostly have remained intact to this day (including the 400-volume "Abdul-Hamid II Collection of Books and Serials" gifted to the Library of Congress), his own library was dispersed in the years following his deposition in 1909: books were removed to other palaces and even sold to Western collectors, the greatest part of his collection is today preserved in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin.

Literatur

OCLC 504499620.

Art.-Nr.: BN#52216 Schlagwörter: ,