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The history of Nadir Shah, formerly called Thamas Kuli Khan, the present emperor of Persia. To which is prefix’d a short history of the Moghol emperors. At the end is inserted, a catalogue of about two hundred manuscripts in the Persic and other oriental languages, collected in the east …

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First edition of ‘the first book in English treating of the Persian ruler Nadir Shah, “the scourge of God”, who had invaded India in 1737–8’ (ODNB), by the Scottish orientalist James Fraser (1713–54). Fraser served with the East India Company for ten years, at Mocha in Yemen and at Khambhat and Surat in Western India, mastering languages and collecting manuscripts, coins and miniatures. Returning to Britain in 1740, he published this History two years later: ‘It is important not only for a first-hand account of contemporary events probably written by William Cockill, who had served in Persia, but also for historical texts and original documents translated from Persian by Fraser’ (ODNB).

The second part comprises a catalogue of Fraser’s oriental manuscripts, arranged by subject. ‘After his death Fraser’s collection of about 200 oriental manuscripts, including Avestan and Sanskrit, which he had purchased at Surat, Cambay, and Ahmadabad, was bought from his widow for the Radcliffe Library at Oxford; it was transferred to the Bodleian Library on 10 May 1872. His claim that his forty-one “Sanskerrit” manuscripts “formed the first collection of that kind ever brought into Europe” … appears to be valid’ (ibid.).

Blackmer 629; ESTC T86075 (another issue appeared in the same year with fewer booksellers in the imprint).

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