Some Records of Ethiopia, 1593-1646. Being extracts from The History of High Ethiopia or Abassia by Manoel de Almeida, together with Bahrey's History of the Galla

Author: Charles Fraser "C F" Beckingham (1914-1998) and George Wynn Brereton"G W B" Huntingford editors

Year: 1954

Publisher: Hakluyt Society

Place: London

Description:

xcviii+267 pages with frontispiece, folding chart, folding maps, illustrations, tables, appendix, bibliography and index. Octavo (8 3/4" x 5 3/4") bound in original publisher's blue cloth with gilt lettering to spine and pictorial representation of the ship Victoria embossed in gilt to front cover with blind-stamped edges to the cover. Translated and edit by by C F Beckingham and G W B Huntingford. Second Series, Number CVI (107). First edition.

 This is a valuable work much enhanced by a detailed and scholarly introduction,w hich gives an admirable impression of the situation of Ethiopia during the first thirty years of the seventeenth century. In addition to setting out the history and background of the manuscripts, translators give a balanced a ccount of the work of the Jesuits and of the situation with which they were faced. While there is much in the points brought forward in regard to Patriarch Alfonso Mendes, the translators perhaps underestimate the intense devotion of the Ethiopian churchment ot their Coptic heritage. There is little evidence that the Jesuit missionaries realized the rooted self confidence or the antiquity of the Ethiopian Christian life. The manuscripts selected for translation and now published are variegated, but well-chosen. It is in many respects the most valuable work that has been published in English dealing with Ethiopia in the seventeenth century.

Condition:

Points gently rubbed and bumped, spine ends lightly rubbed, some foxing to page ends else better than very good.