Gobat in Gondar
GOBAT, Samuel.
Journal of a three years’ residence in Abyssinia, in furtherance of the objects of the Church Missionary Society … To which is prefixed, a brief history of the church of Abyssinia, by the Rev. Professor Lee, D.D. ...
London, Hatchard & Son; and Seeley & Sons, 1834.
8vo, pp. [2], xxi, [1 (blank)], 371, [17 (index)]; with half-title and 1 folding map; marginal browning, some foxing to map; very good in twentieth-century half calf over nineteenth-century marbled boards, spine in compartments lettered and decorated in gilt, marbled endpapers and edges; some rubbing to covers and board edges; inscriptions of ‘E.M. Barrett 1834’ and ‘D. Pise Glendale’ to title, note added below author’s name.
Added to your basket:
Journal of a three years’ residence in Abyssinia, in furtherance of the objects of the Church Missionary Society … To which is prefixed, a brief history of the church of Abyssinia, by the Rev. Professor Lee, D.D. ...
First edition of a journal written by the Swiss Calvinist missionary and later Bishop of Jerusalem Samuel Gobat during his residence in Abyssinia between early 1830 and late 1832.
Born in the small Swiss municipality of Crémines some 50km outside of Bern, Gobat spent time in London and Paris where he learnt some Ge’ez and Arabic before heading to Abyssinia in the employ of the Church Missionary Society. Overall, Gobat spent just under three years in the country: this work, based on a journal he kept during his stay, was first published shortly after leaving the country and recounts his experiences. Although the work was in no doubt shaped by Gobat’s evangelizing intentions and religious zeal – a few years later, in 1846, he was consecrated second protestant Bishop of Jerusalem, a post he held until his death – and is consequently filled with discussions of Christian doctrine as well as observations on Abyssinian politics, ethnology, and religion, it also includes some more unexpected episodes such as Gobat’s flight from Adowah during the midst of a civil war and his misidentification as a spy at Gondar. The work is prefixed by a brief history of the Church of Abyssinia – including an account of its origins and subsequent Jesuit missions there – by the Rev. Professor Lee.
