A Memoir of the Rev. Henry Martyn.
London. R.B. Seeley and W. Burnside, 1839. 14th Edition, Stock ID #224808 An influential missionary biography, drawing extensively on Henry Martyn’s own journals and letters to describe his life and work in India and Persia. An East India Company chaplain and gifted linguist, Martyn worked with local scholars on translations of Scripture, notably the Persian New Testament. The account of his visit to Shiraz gives the work particular interest for the history of translation and encounters between Christianity and Islam, recording his experiences and religious discussions in Persia. When referring to this item please quote stockid 224808.
Frontispiece and engraved vignette title page, xxxvi + 435pp + 4pp adverts, 19 x 12cm. Handwritten inscription dated 1844 on engraved title page, preliminary leaves foxed. Brown cloth covered boards, a little soiled, rebacked with new endpapers.
Sargent’s memoir also became an important work of evangelical literature, reaching ten editions by the time further selections from Martyn’s journals and letters appeared in 1837. Although compiled with an explicitly devotional purpose, it preserves valuable contemporary material on missionary aspirations, religious exchange and British attitudes towards Asia in the early nineteenth century.
Sources: Sargent, Preface to the Memoir (1819); Wilberforce, Introduction to Martyn’s Journals and Letters (1837); Clinton Bennett in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions (1998).
Price: $475.00 AU