De ludis orientalibus libri duo ... and Historia Nerdiludii

1694, Oxford, Sheldonian Theatre.

3 parts in one volume: Part I. (De Ludis Orientalibus. Libri Duo ...) Mandragorias, seu Historia Shahiludii, viz. ejusdem Origo, Antiquitas, Ususque per totum Orientem ... De ludis Orientalium Libri primi ... 36 sheets (including two title pages)+184 pages with one folded copper plate, diagrams and facsimiles. Part II. Shahiludium. Traditum in tribus scriptis hebraicis, quae sunt Rabbi Abraham Abben - Ezrae elegans Poema ryhtmicum ... Omnia ex Chartis MSS jam primus deprompsit & Latinè vertit Thomas Hyde ... 2 sheets (including title), 71 pages. Part III. Historia nerdiludii, high est dicere, trunculorum; cum quibusdam aliis Arabum, Persarum, Indorum, Chinensium, & aliarum gentium ludis tam politicis quàm bellicis, plerumque Europae inauditis, multò minùs visis: additis omnium Nominibus in dictarum Gentium Linguis. Ubi etiam Classicorum Graecorum & Latinorum loca quaedam meliùs quàm hactenùs factum est explicantur. Item, Explicatio amplissimi Chinensium Ludi, qui eorum Politiam & modum perveniendi ad Dignitates in Aulâ Regiâ exponit, & egregio ac peramplo Schemate repraesentat. / De Ludis Orientalibus Lib. 2dus, quem horis succisivis congessit Thomas Hyde ... 8 sheets (including title)+278 pages with 3 folded copper plates, 14 text copper and 18 text woodcuts. Duodecimo (6 3/4" x 4 1/2") bound in vellum with title in script to spine. From the library of E B Cook. (Bibliotheca Van der Linde-Niemeijeriana: 173; Geschichte I, 88 f; Schmid S. 200 ff) First edition.

Thomas Hyde was an English orientalist. Hyde was educated at Eton College, and in his sixteenth year entered King's College, Cambridge. He made rapid progress in Oriental languages, so that, after only one year of residence, he was invited to London to assist Brian Walton in his edition of the Polyglott Bible. In 1658 he was chosen Hebrew reader at Queen's College, Oxford, and in 1659, in consideration of his erudition in Oriental tongues, he was admitted to the degree of M.A. In the same year he was appointed under-keeper of the Bodleian Library, and in 1665 librarian-in-chief. Today he is considered the founder of scientific chess history.

Eugene Beauharnais Cook (1830-1915) was a chess problem composer and so a compiler of the collection American Chess Nuts in 1868 together with W.R. Henry and C.A. Gilberg. At the time of his death he had the third largest chess book collection in the world (2,500 volumes), which was donated to the Princeton University Library.

Condition: Handwritten dedication on front end paper "Given to me by Mr. E. B. Cook October 7th 1877 George E. Vail". Some soiling to vellum, corners bumped, end pages chipped at edges, some stains at with margins in the front else a very good copy of an unusually rare and complete edition.