Fonds BQ - Papers of Bernard Quaritch

Bernard Quaritch was born in a village outside Göttingen, Germany. After first working for booksellers in Nordhausen and Berlin, he travelled to London in 1842, carrying a letter of introduction to Henry Bohn, the leading London bookseller. Quaritch was employed by Bohn until, in 1847, he set up his own business. Quaritch built up his business with an impressive clientele including those in this archive. He became lifelong friends with Edward Fitzgerald and published his translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám in 1859. He continued in business until his death in 1899, when the business passed to his son, Bernard Alfred Quaritch.

For a more indepth biography see: Bernard Quaritch Ltd: Our History (https://www.quaritch.com/about/our-history/#:~:text=We%20have%20been%20buying%20and,London%20in%201842%2C%20aged%2023).

Monier Monier-Williams was the second Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University, England. He studied, documented and taught Asian languages, especially Sanskrit, Persian and Hindustani. He was born in Mumbai, but educated in England. He taught at the East India Company College from 1844 until 1858. In 1860 he stood against Max Müller, and was appointed, for the position of Boden Chair of Sanskrit at Oxford University after the death of Horace Hayman Wilson. He was knighted in 1876.

Max Müller, was a German-born philologist and Orientalist, a founder in the western academic field of Indian studies. He was born in Dessau and was educated in Leipzig. In 1850, he was appointed deputy Taylorian professor of modern European languages at Oxford University and in 1868 was made Oxford's first Professor of Comparative Philology. "The Sacred Books of the East", a 50-volume set of English translations, was prepared under his direction. He also promoted the idea of a Turanian family of languages.

Sir Ernest Mason Satow was born in London and educated at Mill Hill School and University College, London. Satow was an exceptional linguist, an energetic traveller, a writer of travel guidebooks, a dictionary compiler, a mountaineer, a keen botanist, and a major collector of Japanese books and manuscripts on all kinds of subjects. He served in Japan and China as a diplomat and was Britain's second plenipotentiary at the Second Hague Peace Conference.

Sir Edwin Arnold was an English poet and journalist. He was born in Gravesend, Kent, and educated in Rochester and Oxford before becoming a schoolmaster in Birmingham. In 1856 he went to India as Principal of the Government Sanskrit College at Poona. He returned to England in 1861 and worked as a journalist for the Daily Telegraph. He was best known as a poet and specifically for interpreting Eastern philosophy and life in English verse. His chief work with this object is "The Light of Asia", or "The Great Renunciation", a poem of eight books in blank verse.

James Legge was a Scottish sinologist, missionary, and scholar, best known as an early and prolific translator of Classical Chinese texts into English. Legge served as a representative of the London Missionary Society in Malacca and Hong Kong (1840–1873) and was the first Professor of Chinese at Oxford University (1876–1897). In association with Max Müller he prepared the Sacred Books of the East series, published in 50 volumes between 1879 and 1891.

Herbert Allen Giles was born in 1845. he studied at Charterhouse before becoming a British diplomat to China, serving from 1867-1892. He modified a Mandarin Chinese romanisation system established by Thomas Wade, resulting in the widely known Wade–Giles Chinese romanisation system. On returning to England he was appointed the second professor of Chinese language at the University of Cambridge, succeeding Thomas Wade in 1897. He translated many Chinese works. Giles retired in 1932, and subsequently died in 1935.

Edward Fitzgerald was an English poet and writer, best known as the poet of the first and most famous English translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. He was born in Suffolk, lived part of his childhood in France, and attended Trinity College, Cambridge. He became a lifelong friend of Bernard Quaritch who published his the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám in 1857, at first anonymously.

Horace Hayman Wilson (1786-1860) was an English orientalist who studied medicine at St Thomas' Hospital, London, before travelling to India in 1808 to become an assistant surgeon for the East India Company in Bengal. Whilst in Calcutta he devoted his attention to the study of Indian languages, especially Sanskrit, and in 1811 became the Secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, upon the recommendation of Henry Colebrooke. In 1832, Wilson left India as he was appointed the first Professorship in Sanskrit at Oxford University. Four years later he became Librarian at East India House and he fulfilled both positions for many years. Wilson wrote extensively on the subjects of Sanskrit literature, Hindu religion, and Indian history. He became Director of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1837 following Colebrooke's death, and remained in position until his own death in 1860.