The first printed appearance of Karen literature

Wade, Jonathan, & Sau Kau-Too

Thesaurus of Karen knowledge comprising traditions, legends or fabels, poetry, customs, superstitions, demonology, theraputics, etc., alphabetically arranged, and forming a complete native Karen dictionary with definitions and examples illustrating the usages of every word. Written by Sau Kau-Too, and compiled by J[onathan] Wade.

Tavoy: Karen Mission Press, C[ephas] Bennett, 1847-50. First and only edition, 4 volumes, 8vo, volume 1 with an English title page and a 2-p. English preface by Wade, the others with a title page in English; the text throughout is in Karen; full original native calf in varying hues, each with gilt-stamped titles and volume designation numbers on the spines, the top panel of the fourth volume chipped away, several signatures sprung in volume III, all volumes somewhat shaken, worn and occasionally stained. Jonathan Wade was an American missionary born in 1798. American missionaries first arrived among the Karen tribes in 1828. It was apparently impracticable for them to set up a printing-press in the wild country of the Shan states, but they did so several hundred miles farther south, at Tavoy, in the Tenasserim province. The first book of the press appears to be Wade's own Karen dictionary (Tavoy ca. 1842-44), and in 1846 the Rev. Cephas Bennett published there An Anglo-Karen Vocabulary. But he was not the first pioneer to set the Karen language down on paper, for we are told that Karen was "never written till Dr. Wade, an American missionary, reduced it to writing using the Burmese consonants. The Karens thus have no written literature" (The Spread of Printing, Eastern Hemisphere, p. 87). This set, then, represents the first printed appearance of the body of Karen literature. A compelling set of a rare work. Item #9725

Price: $3,000.00