Edward William Lane

Edward William Lane (born September 17, 1801 in Hereford , † August 10, 1876 in Worthing ) was an important British orientalist.

Born the son of a canon in Hereford, he went to Cambridge to study , but soon left the university and went to London to become an engraver. When he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and recommended to stay in a warmer climate, he traveled to Egypt in 1825 . There he devoted himself intensively to the study of the life of the Egyptians and the Arabic language . In 1828 he returned to England and looked in vain for an editor for his travel diary, which he had illustrated himself. In 1834 he traveled to Egypt again. In 1838 he published his first important work Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians , which was translated into German by Julius Theodor Zenker in 1852 . This exact and comprehensive description of Egypt received a lot of attention from the English public. From 1840 to 1841 he published an English translation of 1001 Nights after the first Arabic print published in Bulaq . Then he turned to an Arabic-English dictionary. He stayed in Egypt again from 1842 to 1849 for studies of this kind. He was unable to finish the Arabic-English Lexicon until his death. It was continued by his nephew Stanley Lane-Poole , and the last volume was finally published in 1893.

literature

Stanley Lane-Poole : The Life of Edward William Lane. London 1877.
Leila Ahmed: Edward W. Lane: a study of his life and works and of British ideas of the Middle East in the nineteenth century. London 1978.
Arthur John Arberry : The Lexicographer: Edward William Lane , in: Oriental Essays: Portraits of Seven Scholars, London 1960, 87–121.
Jason Thompson: Lane's Description of Egypt. Cairo 2000.

Web links

Commons : Edward William Lane - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

personal data
SURNAME	Lane, Edward William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	British orientalist
DATE OF BIRTH	17th September 1801
PLACE OF BIRTH	Hereford
DATE OF DEATH	August 10, 1876
Place of death	Worthing