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Hard cover, 12mo, in yellow cloth boards with gold lettering, and with a mandala design to front cover, green and cream foliage design endpapers, [2], xi, [1], 244, 20, [2]pp. Includes 20 pages of "Notices of The Light of Asia" by Rev. Wm. H. Channing, London. **CONDITION: Very Good with minor surface soiling to boards very small wear to tips. Internally, hinges in order. Christmas gift inscription in old ink, dated 1881, on prelim. Otherwise, clean and square and bright. ** The poem, arranged in in eight books, was first published in London: Trübner and Co. in 1879, where it went to at least seven editions. It has been called one of the first, and most sucessful attempts to introduce concepts of Buddhism to the West, and was translated into many languages.** AUTHOR/TRANSLATOR Sir Edwin Arnold (1832 - 1904) was an English journalist and poet, notable for his 1879 work "The Light of Asia", an epic poem describing the life of Buddha, derived from the Sanskrit "Lalitavistara Sūtra". His career started as the Principal of a school in India, where he witnessed and survived the Indian Rebellion of 1857. He returned to England as a journalist for "The Daily Telegraph", where he arranged the famous expedition to Africa by H.M. Stanley. Arnold later lived in Japan and married a Japanese woman, Tama Kurokawa. He was a vegetarian, and Vice President of the West London Food Reform Society which boasted Mahatma Gandhi as secretary. The work was inspired a film in 1925, and an oratorio in 1887. Arnold also had literary connections in America, corresponding with the Massachusetts poet Walt Whitman in 1889 (Watson, 608).
Ref: INDIA 9378
$50.00