DOSABHAI FRAMJI KARAKA. History of the Parsis. Including their Manners, Customs, Religion, and present Position.

DOSABHAI FRAMJI KARAKA. History of the Parsis. Including their Manners, Customs, Religion, and present Position.DOSABHAI FRAMJI KARAKA. History of the Parsis. Including their Manners, Customs, Religion, and present Position. London: Macmillan. 1884. Two volumes, 8vo. Original cloth, illustrated, lettered and ornamented in gilt; pp. xxxii, 332; viii, 350, title pages printed in blue and sepia, steel engraved portrait frontispiece with tissue guard, four chromo lithographic plates with tissue guards; extremities of the binding a little worn, soines rubbed;

DOSABHAI FRAMJI KARAKA. History of the Parsis. Including their Manners, Customs, Religion, and present Position. London: Macmillan. 1884.

Two volumes, 8vo. Original cloth, illustrated, lettered and ornamented in gilt; pp. xxxii, 332; viii, 350, title-pages printed in blue and sepia, steel-engraved portrait-frontispiece with tissue guard, four chromo-lithographic plates with tissue guards; extremities of the binding a little worn, soines rubbed; withdrawn from Cary Library in Lexington, with stamps to title-pages and remnants of shelfmark labels, paste-downs renewed; contemporary Boston bookseller's label on front fly-leaves, internally very good.

Very rare first edition, updated, enlarged and largely re-written after Karaka's not illustrated one-volume book The Parsees of 1858. A throuroughly researched book on the Parsi (Parsee, Zoroastrian) history, community, culture and of course religion, which is considered the oldest monotheistic faith. With the Islamic conquest the Parsi were driven out of Iran and found exile in India and spread further.

Dosabhai Framji Karaka (1829-1902) was a newspaper editior and civil servant in India of Parsi origin. In this work he counters erroneous preconceptions of Zoroastrians as fire-worshippers, and emphasizes the Zorastrians support for female education and progressive 19th-century attitudes.

SKU: 2124581