A HISTORY OF ARABIC LITERATURE BY CLÉMENT HUART SECRETARY-INTERPRETER FOR ORIENTAL LANGUAGES TO INTER FOLIAD NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY EDITORIAL PREFACE THIS Volume has been written at my invitation for this series of Short Histories of the Literatures of the World, and has been translated from the author's manuscript by Lady Mary Loyd. Professor Clément Huart, who is one of the most distinguished and most widely accomplished of living Orientalists, was born in 1854. He is among the many eminent Eastern scholars who have proceeded from the École des Langues Orientales Vivantes, and it is his rare distinction to have proceeded, from the first, at equal steps along the investigation of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Romaic literatures. He was early attached to the service of the French Foreign Office, and exercised for several years the functions of chancellor at the French Consulate at Damascus. He was ultimately called to Constantinople, originally as dragoman to the French Embassy, then as Consul. In 1890 he was sent to Asia Minor to make a report on the Arabic epigraphy of that province, and he has made similar investigations in Syria. He was recalled to Paris to fill the responsible office of secretary-interpreter for Oriental languages to the French Government. The publications of Professor Huart are numerous, and are known to all Eastern scholars, |