The Oriental Collections

As editor and contributor, William Ouseley (1767–1842) published this three-volume collection of essays between 1797 and 1800. Educated at Paris and Leiden, Ouseley became an honorary fellow of the royal societies of Amsterdam, Göttingen and Edinburgh. He researched extensively on Persia, producing important work on Persian handwriting. Several of his translations of works by fellow orientalist J. L. Burckhardt (1784–1817) are also reissued in this series. Ouseley's Oriental Collections consists of miscellaneous pieces contributed by a number of writers on aspects of Asian history, culture and literature. Volume 3 includes an exegesis on Hafez, essays on Chinese dialogue and the Korean alphabet, a catalogue of Sanskrit manuscripts, translated extracts from the historian al-Tabari, and several Persian odes and sonnets, as well as answers to readers' queries. The diverse subject matter will appeal to readers interested in the nature and progress of oriental scholarship in the late eighteenth century.