This catalogue describes over 2,000 Arabic manuscripts acquired by the Princeton University Library since the 1950s, providing information on an important collection of Arabic works, many of which were previously unknown or unrecorded. Originally published in 1987. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Arabic and Persian Manuscripts in the Birnbaum Collection, Toronto contains many early copies, some from the 6th A.H. /12thh C.E. century onwards. While descriptions are arranged by subject, author and title indexes are provided, as well as photographs of pages of some notable manuscripts.

In Arabic and Islamic studies, the subject of variance in general and that of textual variation in particular has not been investigated exhaustively so far. In the present book the variation in texts of the “closed transmission” will be studied, focusing on a small corpus of didactic and model poems, with a view to establishing what degree of text stability and change was allowed by the medium manuscript. Categories of variance (relating to work-titles, text, number of verses and their sequence, page-layout, context) and the means of controlling them in the manuscripts of the poems are identified and detailed descriptions of the copies are given. The monograph also includes a presentation of some major traits of the cultural background to the study of Arabic didactic poetry and of its dissemination in which memorization has played a crucial role. The intended readers,editors and other users of manuscripts, are helped to acquaint themselves with the methods employed in the manuscripts to control variation and they are given an overview of the large spectrum of Arabic didactic poetry and of its place in the traditional culture of learning in Islamicate societies.