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KLAPROTH, Julius von (1783-1835). Mémoires relatifs à l'Asie, contenant des recherches historiques, géographiques et philologiques sur les peuples de l'Orient . Paris: Librarie Orientale de Dondey-Dupré père et fils, 1826-28.
KLAPROTH, Julius von (1783-1835). Mémoires relatifs à l'Asie, contenant des recherches historiques, géographiques et philologiques sur les peuples de l'Orient . Paris: Librarie Orientale de Dondey-Dupré père et fils, 1826-28. 3 volumes, 8° (203 x 122 mm). 10 engraved plates on 9 sheets (4 folding, one with short closed tear) and 6 folding maps (one with outline coloring). (Some pale spotting.) Contemporary tree calf, smooth spines gilt decorated, each with two crimson morocco lettering pieces, by Bradel-Derome. Provenance : vicomte Eugène de Bourbon-Busset (1799-1863; bookplate); Jean-Paul-Morin (bookplate). First Collected Edition. Second edition of the first volume (originally published separately in 1824). Klaproth devoted his energies in quite early life to the study of Asiatic languages, and published in 1802 his Asiatisches Magazin (Weimar 1802–1803). He was appointed to the academy in St. Petersburg, and in 1805 he was a member of Count Golovkin's embassy to China. On his return he was despatched by the academy to the Caucasus on an ethnographical and linguistic exploration (1807–1808), and was afterwards employed for several years in connection with the academy's Oriental publications. In 1815 he settled in Paris, where in 1816 Humboldt helped procure him the title and salary of professor of Asiatic languages and literature from the king of Prussia, with permission to remain in Paris as long as was requisite for the publication of his works. Cordier Sinica I, 68; Lust 91 (“Le premier volume de la collection suivante est de la même édition avec un titre et une date différentes”); Morrison II, 139. A FINE SET. [ With :] KLAPROTH, Julius von (1783-1835 ). Lettre a M. le baron A. de Humboldt, sur l’invention de la Boussole. Paris: Prosper Dondey-Dupré, 1834. 8° (230 x 148 mm). 3 folding lithographed plates depicting ideograms and Chinese compasses (some pale foxing). Late 19th-century quarter morocco gilt, original printed wrappers bound in, uncut. FIRST EDITION of this letter published by the German orientalist J. von Klaproth (1783-1835) in response to a request formulated by Humboldt on the dating of when the Chinese would have known the polarity of the magnet and would have made the application to the compass. Klaproth defend the thesis that China would have the first knowledge of the polarity of the magnet and, therefore, the use of the compass in navigation. A comparative study of the etymology of the word "magnet" in various Asian languages ??and European precedes the exposition of historical data that allows Klaproth to state that "the use of the magnetic needle was generally known in Europe in the end of the twelfth and in the thirteenth century of our era "(p. 54). Bourquelot, IV, 465; Cordier Sinica II, 1458.