Bücher von Joseph Wolff

The Christian missionary Joseph Wolff (1795-1862) published in 1845 this account of his perilous journey to the Emirate of Bukhara (in present-day Uzbekistan) to investigate the disappearance of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Stoddart and Captain Arthur Conolly. Wolff later discovered that the British officers had been executed.

Born in Franconia, the son of a rabbi, Joseph Wolff (1795-1862) was baptised in 1812. Educated in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, he later studied Arabic, Syriac and Aramaic in Vienna, and Christian theology in Rome before being expelled from the city for his heretical views. He came to England, became a member of the Church of England, and then embarked on his missionary work. Though he met with limited evangelical success, the books he went on to publish made him well known at home. Reissued here is his 1835 account of travels in the early 1830s through the Middle East and Asia, during which he experienced robbery and disease, journeyed through the Himalayas, and was hosted by numerous royal courts. This tale, exotic and extraordinary, is a remarkable source for those interested in nineteenth-century orientalism and Christian missionary zeal.

Published in 1861, this work in the third person, dictated by Joseph Wolff (1795-1862) to friends, is an epic miscellany of stories. Wolff, the son of a rabbi, had a peripatetic Middle European childhood. He converted to Christianity in 1812, studying Near Eastern languages in Vienna and Tubingen, and theology in Rome - until he was expelled by the Inquisition for heretical views. He eventually moved to England, working for the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews. Beginning his mission in the Middle East, he later travelled to Afghanistan, Ethiopia, India, and the United States, where he preached to Congress. His eventful career saw him variously shipwrecked, enslaved, and forced to walk without clothes for 600 miles following a robbery. In 1847 he settled more quietly in a Somerset vicarage. Though characteristically orientalist (and with possible embellishments), this work remains an invigorating depiction of a lifetime's adventure.