CRAWFURD, John.

A descriptive dictionary of the Indian islands & adjacent countries.

London, Bradbury & Evans, 1856. 8vo (215 x 140 mm), pp. [iv], 459, with a folding map; modern half calf. First edition. This dictionary, ‘which was a culmination of forty years’ research, not only compared the various Indies languages but also incorporated a comprehensive study of peoples, migrations, trading patterns, and the diffusion of language’ (Oxford DNB).The author had first travelled to Calcutta in 1803 as assistant surgeon for the East India Company’s Bengal medical service and had gone on to occupy a number of senior administrative posts in southeast Asia. He served as resident at the central court of the sultan of Jogjakarta during Lord Minto’s occupation of Java. In 1821, he led a diplomatic mission to Siam and Vietnam in the hope of opening up commerce with the East India Company. And, a couple of years later, he succeeded Sir Stamford Raffles as governor of Singapore. On his return to England he became the doyen of a London group of retired Straits Settlements officials, also devoting himself to the study of the languages, geography and ethnology of southeast Asia. During this time he published several books invaluable for an understanding of the region, the Descriptive dictionary being one of them. He ‘was widely respected by contemporary experts: the crucial help of “der talentvolle Verfasser” (“the highly talented author”) received fulsome acknowledgement in Wilhelm von Humboldt’s monumental Über die Kawi-Sprache auf der Inseln Java (3 vols, 1836–9). At the Royal Geographical Society’s annual meeting held a fortnight after Crawfurd’s death the chairman, Sir Roderick Murchison, spoke warmly of Crawfurd, his friend of more than forty years, who had “perhaps written more than it has been given to any one author of this century to accomplish” (Proceedings). And The Times, in a substantial obituary, hailed Crawfurd as a “distinguished orientalist, scholar and ethnologist” ’ (Oxford DNB).Cordier, Indosinica 1109.

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• ordernr.: T2608

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