Title: The
Light of Asia or The Great Renunciation. Being the life and teaching of Gautama
as told in verse by an Indian Buddhist.
Author: Sir Edwin Arnold
Publisher: Kegan Paul, Trench & Trubner & Co., Ltd
City: LondonYear: 1890 (Limited and Signed Special Edition)Binding Style: Hardcover
Pagination: 252Illustrated: Yes
Book Details + Condition: Very scarce Large Paper Special
Edition of THE LIGHT OF ASIA from 1890, limited to fifty numbered copies of which this is No. 19, signed by the
publisher Charles Whittingham. Title page printed in red and black, with portrait
frontispiece. Bound in full leather with raised bands on spine. Boards and binding are solid and tight, with some light shelfwear: rubbed and bent corners, and one band on spine missing. Old repair to front board and spine — please see pictures. Ex-libris paste-downs on inside front board, endpaper. Please see below for more information on Arnold and his work.
Sir
Edwin Arnold K.C.I.E, C.S.I. (10 June 1832 - 24 March 1904) was an English poet
and journalist, most known for his work The Light of Asia. The first edition of
the book was published in London in July 1879. In the form of a narrative poem,
the book endeavors to describe the life and time of Prince Gautama Siddhartha,
who after attaining enlightenment became The Buddha, The Awakened One. The book
presents his life, character, and philosophy, in a series of verses. It is a
free adaptation of the Lalitavistara. A few decades before the book's publication,
very little was known outside Asia about the Buddha and Buddhism. Arnold's book
was one of the first successful attempts to popularize Buddhism for a Western
readership. The book has been highly acclaimed from the time it was first
published, and has been the subject of several reviews. It has been translated
into several languages.
