?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
IBN TUFAYL, MUHAMMAD IBN 'ABD AL-MALIK. The Improvement of Human Reason: exhibited in the life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan. . . In which is demonstrated By what Methods one may, by the Meer Light of Nature, attain the Knowledg of things Natural and Supernatural. English translation by Simon Ockley. 6 engraved plates, including engraved additional title with imprint of Edm. Powell. [12], 195, [1] pages. 8vo, 179x114 mm, 19th-century tan calf gilt, evidence of tape removal on spine and covers; contents toned with scattered marginal foxing, catalogue cutting mounted on front pastedown. Armorial bookplate of C. B. Caldwell; conspicuous stamp of Saint Gregory's University on top, fore, and bottom edges, pastedowns, and title. London: W. Bray, 1711
Second edition of Ockley's 1708 translation, the first into English from the original Arabic, of a philosophical novel in which the title character grows to adulthood alone on a desert island, attaining scientific knowledge and religious illumination through reason and observation. The author was an Andalusian philosopher and physician (d. 1185). English versions published in 1674 and 1686 were made from the Latin translation by Edward Pococke accompanying the 1671 first edition of the Arabic text. DSB XIII, 488-89; Sarton II, 354-54.
