Brief description
Qisat Almadinatayn; قصة المدينتين [A Tale of Two Cities] 2 Volumes, 1926
Label
Born just before the British occupation of Egypt in 1882, Muhammad al-Siba‘i was the first translator of many English works into Arabic including Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Wilkie Collins and here Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. In 1912 the Egyptian Ministry of Public Instruction made al-Siba‘i's translation mandatory in secondary schools. Al-Siba‘i, an Egyptian nationalist, hoped this translation "might one day transform this grave they call Egypt into a country of living people who feel and think, and not one of mere vegetation in the image of humans who only grow old and die". Muhammad's son Yusuf was also a famous novelist and politician who was assassinated in 1978. This two-volume edition of al-Siba‘i's translation was given in 1926 to Hassan Abdel Wahhab, headmaster of a school in Ismailia, who gave it to the Dickens Museum in 1936.
Collection
Library
Object number
[lib]1439
Object type
book
Title
Qisat Almadinatayn; قصة المدينتين
Production person
Dickens, Charles
Ali, Mullah Ibrahim
Al-Rafafy, Omar Al-Omi
Production organisation
Mahalla Al-Bayan
Production date
1926
Production place
Egypt
Inscription content
[In English]
Volume 1 of The Arabic Translation for A Tale of Two Cities presented by H. A. Wahab Headmaster Govt School Ismailia, Egypt. 10/10/1936. ; Volume 2 of The Arabic Translation for A Tale of Two Cities presented by H. A. Wahab. Headmaster Govt School, Ismailia, Egypt. 10/10/1936

[In Arabic, overleaf]
Presented to Hassan Abdul Wahhāb, principal of Ismael Abu Yusr' school In Egypt.
The translator's word
In the name of Allah the most gracious and the most merciful
In memory of Teacher Alaa, the translator of this story 11/11/1926

Inscription description
black ink reverse of title page volume 1; black ink reverse of title page volume 2

A Tale of Two Cities in Arabic, 1912