Jason Thompson
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789774162879
- eISBN:
- 9781617970214
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- American University in Cairo Press
- DOI:
- 10.5743/cairo/9789774162879.003.0031
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Middle Eastern Studies
The first volume of Edward William Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon was published in spring 1863, twenty-two years after the project began. It displays all the photographic accuracy for which he is so ...
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The first volume of Edward William Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon was published in spring 1863, twenty-two years after the project began. It displays all the photographic accuracy for which he is so well known, combined with scholarship of a kind — acquired as it was in the East — which is hard to attain. The nomination of “M. Edouard Guillaume Lane” described him as a distinguished orientalist who had made “little noise in the world” but had become well known to the learned; it confidently predicted that the Arabic-English Lexicon would become “a mine of research for the centuries.” Turning the pages of beautifully chromolithographed plates, Lane remembered the original drawings that Lepsius had shown him twenty years before in Cairo. As he occasionally confided, a secret part of him was still fascinated with ancient Egypt.Less
The first volume of Edward William Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon was published in spring 1863, twenty-two years after the project began. It displays all the photographic accuracy for which he is so well known, combined with scholarship of a kind — acquired as it was in the East — which is hard to attain. The nomination of “M. Edouard Guillaume Lane” described him as a distinguished orientalist who had made “little noise in the world” but had become well known to the learned; it confidently predicted that the Arabic-English Lexicon would become “a mine of research for the centuries.” Turning the pages of beautifully chromolithographed plates, Lane remembered the original drawings that Lepsius had shown him twenty years before in Cairo. As he occasionally confided, a secret part of him was still fascinated with ancient Egypt.
Jason Thompson
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789774162879
- eISBN:
- 9781617970214
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- American University in Cairo Press
- DOI:
- 10.5743/cairo/9789774162879.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Middle Eastern Studies
Few Western scholars of the Middle East have exerted such profound influence as Edward William Lane. Lane's Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (1836), which has never gone out ...
More
Few Western scholars of the Middle East have exerted such profound influence as Edward William Lane. Lane's Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (1836), which has never gone out of print, remains as a highly authoritative study of Middle Eastern society. His annotated translation of the Arabian Nights (1839–41) retains a devoted readership. Lane's recently recovered and published Description of Egypt (2000) shows that he was a pioneering Egyptologist as well as orientalist. The capstone of his career, the definitive Arabic-English Lexicon (1863–93), is an indispensable reference tool. Yet, despite his extraordinary influence, little was known about Lane and virtually nothing about how he did his work. Now, in this full-length biography, Lane's life and accomplishments are examined in full, including his crucial years of field work in Egypt, revealing the life of a great Victorian scholar and presenting a fascinating episode in east-west encounter, interaction, and representation.Less
Few Western scholars of the Middle East have exerted such profound influence as Edward William Lane. Lane's Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (1836), which has never gone out of print, remains as a highly authoritative study of Middle Eastern society. His annotated translation of the Arabian Nights (1839–41) retains a devoted readership. Lane's recently recovered and published Description of Egypt (2000) shows that he was a pioneering Egyptologist as well as orientalist. The capstone of his career, the definitive Arabic-English Lexicon (1863–93), is an indispensable reference tool. Yet, despite his extraordinary influence, little was known about Lane and virtually nothing about how he did his work. Now, in this full-length biography, Lane's life and accomplishments are examined in full, including his crucial years of field work in Egypt, revealing the life of a great Victorian scholar and presenting a fascinating episode in east-west encounter, interaction, and representation.
