Rare Book Seller Peter Harrington Brings Landmark “Incunabula of the Arab World” – Examples of the First Books Printed in the Region – to ADIBF 2025

Leading rare book dealer Peter Harrington returns to the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair (ADIBF) 2025 with a remarkable collection of the first books printed in the Arab world, including some of the first books printed using movable type – a collection that traces the powerful and unexpected legacy of Napoleon’s 1798 invasion of Egypt.

For the first time in the region, ten highlights from Napolean’s foundational printing press – the Imprimerie orientale et française in Alexandria (later renamed Imprimerie national du Caire on moving to the Egyptian capital Cairo), and Egypt’s pioneering Bulaq Press – will be on view and available to collectors. Together, they tell the story of how a moment of military occupation catalyzed a printing revolution across the Arab world.

“These books are the incunabula of Arabic printing,” says Pom Harrington. “In Europe, incunabula refer to books printed before 1501 – the cradle of print. In the Arab world, thanks to the dominance of manuscript culture, the equivalent printed books emerged later but hold just as much historical and cultural significance.”

Printing, Power & a Cultural Awakening

In 1798, Napoleon landed in Egypt with not just soldiers, but printing presses, types, and trained operators – including the orientalist Jean-Joseph Marcel and the young printer Marc Aurel. Within days, the Imprimerie orientale et française was established in Alexandria, later relocated to Cairo. The press produced official proclamations, military bulletins, and Arabic-language materials to win over local elites – a radical novelty at the time.

Although the French occupation ended in 1801, it left a lasting impression. The Bulaq Press, founded two decades later by Muhammad Ali Pasha (Basha in Arabic), drew direct inspiration from Napoleon’s printing model. Notably, one of Bulaq’s key figures, Niqula Musabiki, had previously worked at the French press in Cairo.

Bulaq became the first major Arabic publisher, printing grammars, religious texts, scientific treatises, and literature — including the first complete Arabic edition of One Thousand and One Nights (1835), a masterpiece of Arabic printing and literary history that helped define the global image of the Arab literary tradition, and one of the centrepieces of Peter Harrington’s 2025 presentation.

Highlights from These Landmark Presses at ADIBF 2025 Include:

• A rare and previously unrecorded pamphlet issued by Napoleon’s mobile press in Alexandria during the Syrian campaign (1799) — one of the first printed works in Egypt using movable type, reflecting Napoleon’s strategic use of the press as a tool of influence and control.
• An 1835 Bulaq edition of One Thousand and One Nights, the first complete edition printed in the Arab world and the foundation for modern translations.
• A French-Arabic vocabulary (1799) from the Imprimerie nationale, likely the first separately published lexicon of its kind.
• Qur’anic and grammatical texts printed at Bulaq, fine examples of the elegance of early Arabic printing.

These works reflect not only the technological awakening of a region, but also the early stages of a broader intellectual and literary renaissance that swept through the Arab world in the 19th century – influencing everything from state governance to religious scholarship.

Contemporary Relevance

In 2025, this story resonates deeply across the Middle East. Regional museums and cultural institutions — including the upcoming Zayed National Museum, House of Wisdom in Sharjah, Arabic Language Centre and Qatar National Library — are increasingly focused on the material culture of knowledge, and the evolution of Arabic printing is central to that narrative.

Peter Harrington’s exhibition at ADIBF invites media, collectors, curators, and academics to explore the origin story of Arabic publishing — one of unintended consequence and enduring legacy.

Peter Harrington has attended Abu Dhabi International Book Fair since 2016. The Middle East region currently accounts for between 15-20 percent of Peter Harrington’s international sales, with the majority of the buyers from the region made up of institutional buyers for libraries and regional museums, government departments and private collections of regional patrons of the arts and culture.

The UAE accounts for the largest share of Peter Harrington’s Middle East business, with a growing collector community in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar who work with the rare book’s specialist team to curate, appraise and acquire items for private and institutional collections. The cost of single book acquisitions ranges from the low thousands to more than a million dirhams.