L'Égypte Satirique. Album d'Abou Naddara, illustré de 48 pages de gravues. Les deux affreux tyrans du Nil, Tewfik et son père Ismail. Vision du Cheikh Abou Naddara. Conférences: l'Egypte au xixe siècle, l'invasion anglaise, le mahdi.

8vo (170 x 253 mm). 38, (2), 112 pp. With a wood-engraved portrait of Abou Naddara and numerous illustrations. Modern marbled half calf with gilt-stamped spine. Silk divider. Inscribed to Paul Leclerc, "ami de l'Égypte, hommage respectueux du Cheikh Abou Naddara", also signed in Arabic. - "Abou Naddara" was the first Arabic magazine to feature cartoons (with captions in French and Arabic), as well as the first work to use in the press a form of colloquial Arabic, radically different from the literary form. - The Egyptian journalist James Sanua ("Ya'qub Rufa'il Sanu'" in Arabic, but usually known simply by his pseudonym, Abou Naddara, "father of spectacles") was born into a family of Sephardic Jews in Cairo. He played an important role in the development of the Arabic theatre in the 1870s, but it was as a satirical journalist that he became best known, targeting the Khedive as well as the British interlopers. He founded the satirical magazine "Abou Naddara" in 1877, which immediately enjoyed a broad appeal and was quickly suppressed; of the 15 issues that appeared between March and April 1877, no copies are known. Sanua went into exile in 1878, but his celebrated journal, reproduced lithographically from manuscript in Arabic and French, continued to appear, printed in Paris at a shop aptly located in the Passage du Caire in the 2e arrondissement. Within Egypt, where the magazine's smaller format allowed it to be smuggled inside other larger newspapers, its circulation was considerable, with possibly over 3000 copies of each issue printed. There is evidence of its presence in the highest echelons of Egyptian society, and its content focused on the political and financial turmoil in Egypt, as Sanua was undoubtedly privy to information from friends and informants well-placed inside administrative circles. - Extremely rare. Loosely inserted is a folded original issue of the "Journal Oriental" ("Directeur & Rédacteur en chef: J. Sanua Abou Naddara"), no. 8, dated 25 September 1886 (entirely lithographed in Arabic). - OCLC 25737746.