SMITH, George. The Chaldean Account of Genesis. Containing the Description of the Creation, the Fall of Man, the Deluge, the Tower of Babel, the Times of the Patriarchs, and Nimrod: Babylonian Fables, and Legends of the Gods; from the Cuneiform Inscriptions. New York, Scribner, Armstrong & Co., 1876. Large 8vo, original gilt-decorated green cloth, spine gilt-lettered, blind rules and gilt design to front board and spine, frontispiece, b&w illustrations, xvi-320pp (+ 2pp adverts); very good copy, binding with minor faults, light staining to bottom of front board, spine extremities rubbed
The first US edition of this classic work by English Assyriologist George Smith (1840–1876), assembling Babylonian and Assyrian creation myths from surviving cuneiform fragments. This work is considered as one of the most important contributions to the understanding of the development of Near Eastern myth cycles ever published. Smith delivered to a shocked Victorian audience the first reports of the Babylonian Flood legend, of the Epic of Gilgamesh (then known as Izdubar), and the uncanny parallels between the Hebrew Bible and the myths and legends of Babylon. The collection has been highly influential for scholars of Near Eastern mythology and much favoured by later occultists such as Mme. Blavatsky, who made considerable use of it when writing The Secret Doctrine. A very presentable copy of this groundbreaking work.
