Though recognized in the latter part of the 19th century as “the greatest Orientalist in Britain,” the Geneva-born Anglican priest, Solomon Caesar Malan (1812–1894) was such an extraordinary person that he has defied any scholarly person to write a critical account of his life and works. Consequently, almost no one has written anything critically appreciative and insightful about him since his death.
A polymath with extraordinary talent for languages and sketching, among other specialized skills, Malan focused much of his life on assessing biblical translations in ancient Middle Eastern and East Asian languages, while also producing English translations of alternative expressions of Christianity found in north Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. A life-long interest of his was comparing the proverbs of his name-sake, King Solomon, with proverbial wisdom from as many cultures and languages as he could find. That interest culminated in the three-volume work Original Notes on the Book of Proverbs that enshrined his achievements realized through his capacities as a hyperpolyglot within the context of a search for shared wisdom across many cultures.

Editor’s Preface and Acknowledgements

Preface by the Rt Revd Dr. Graham Kings

FRÉDÉRIC AMSLER: S. C. Malan’s Familial and Ecclesiastical Context in Geneva

† R. G. TIEDEMANN: S. C. Malan at Bishop’s College, Calcutta, 1838–1840

T. H. BARRETT: Malan as Dorset Worthy: Solomon Caesar and Valentine Ackland

JOHN EDWARDS: Solomon Caesar Malan: Personality, Polyglossia and the Autistic Spectrum

LAUREN F. PFISTER: Surprises within Solomon Caesar Malan’s Christian Works and His Critical Advances in Scholarly Chris-tian Reflection

THOMAS ZIMMER: Solomon Caesar Malan’s Understanding of Chinese Sayings and Proverbial Wisdom: A Preliminary Study of His Art and Technique of Translation

WILLIAM YAU NANG NG: Discerning the Worldview in Confucian Proverbs: A Preliminary Reflec-tion on S. C. Malan’s Selection of Confucian Proverbs from The Four Books

LORETTA E. KIM: Malan’s Manjurica

RITA KUZDER: Initiating the Discovery of Tibetan Wisdom in the Original Notes on the Book of Proverbs

JAMES M. HEGARTY: The Sanskrit of Solomon Caesar Malan: An Anglican Savant Reads the Mahābhārata

GYULA PACZOLAY and LAUREN F. PFISTER: From Ladakh to Budapest via Broadwindsor: The Journey of an Unusual Gift of Ti-betan Books

LAUREN F. PFISTER: Recovering the Now Invisible Malan Library

LAUREN F. PFISTER: Breaking the Code of a Monstrous Codex: An Intellectual Journey into the Hidden Secrets of the Original Notes on the Book of Proverbs