The bibliophile and the Bodleian: Solomon Caesar Malan and his oriental library

As the Bodleian Libraries’ Head of the Oriental section, I share my office with a number of artefacts from the libraries’ past history. Two items bear witness to the history of the Indian Institute Library collections; a wooden stand advertising the former Library’s opening hours and a framed notice, which urges to the attention of readers the Malan Library, presented in January 1885 by the Revd. Dr. Solomon Caesar Malan, Vicar of Broadwindsor, a scholar of wide knowledge who had travelled extensively in Europe, Asia and Africa. The notice describes Malan’s library as consisting of more than 4,000 volumes in more than 100 distinct languages or dialects including Arabic, Armenian Chinese, Danish, Egyptian and Coptic, Finnish, Georgian, Gothic, Hebrew, Icelandic, Lappish, Pali, Persian and Sanskrit and even North American languages such as Cree.