BREREWOOD, Edward.
Recherches curieuses sur la diversité des langues et religions, par toutes les principales parties du Monde. Par Ed. Brerewood, Professeur à Londres, et mises en François par I. de la Montagne.
Paris: Olivier de Varennes, 1640.
8vo (170 × 105 mm.), pp, 22, 338 (leaf é3, ?blank, cancelled as often). Woodcut device to title. Light but inoffensive waterstaining throughout, a few old repairs to small wormoles to inner gutter. Early ownership inscriptions to title. Contemporary limp vellum, spine lettered in manuscript and rewritten later in a bolder hand. Some staining. A good, unsophisticated copy.
First edition in French of Enquiries touching the diversity of languages, and religions through the cheife parts of the world (London, 1614). This is a translation of the most important of Brerewood's many works, an enterprising early study of linguistics and ethnology. It is known especially for Brerewood's thesis that America had been peopled principally from Asia and thus that the native Americans were in fact of Asian descent. It evidently attained some currency in France and there are several sevnteenth-century editions in French.The author's intention was to classify the cultures of the known world according to a fourfold division (Christians, Muslims, idolaters and Jews) and to understand the historical origins of Christianity. Reflecting the author's profession as mathematician and professor of astronomy at Gresham College, the work is an interesting exercise in quantifying proportionally the relative influence over the globe of each of the dominant cultures. He concludes that if the known regions of the earth are divided into "30 equall parts" the Christian part was five, the Muslim six, the idolators' nineteen, with Judaism dispersed among them all.
£480.00
US$953.18*
* Given as a guide only. Based on an exchange rate of £1 = US$1.985799 for the day 25 July 2008 but liable to fluctuate.
25 July 2008