Woman and Her Saviour in Persia. By a Returned Missionary. With Fine Illustrations, and a Map of Nestorian Country.
Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1863. First edition. With a large folding map of the “Country of the Nestorians” (i.e., the area occupied by the Assyrian people), a frontispiece, a full-page illustration, and five text illustrations. Aside from the map, the illustrations were done by a missionary who traveled with the author. Spine sunned, some rubbing to corners and tail of spine. Spine somewhat cocked. Brown coated endpapers. Some toning, mostly marginal. A good copy of this account of the life of an American woman in Iran, rare in commerce. Publisher’s purple cloth stamped in blind. Twelvemo. 303, [8, publisher’s ads] pp. Item #17379
Fidelia Fisk (also known as Fidelia Fiske, 1816 – 1864) worked as a Congregationalist missionary, educator, and nurse in Iran for fifteen years, beginning in 1843. Fisk was recruited by Presbyterian missionary Justin Perkins, the first United States citizen to reside in Iran, leading her to resign from her position as a teacher at Mount Holyoke Seminary to pursue missionary work. She was the first single woman to work as a missionary in Iran. Fisk spent most of her time working at the Urmia Seminary (later renamed the Fiske Seminary in her honor), the first all-girls school founded by missionaries in Iran.
The present work was compiled by Thomas Laurie, who gathered accounts of Fisk’s work from her friends and fellow missionaries. Descriptions of the landscape, cities, and people of Iran supplement the account of Fiske’s work, with particular attention given to the lives of Iranian women, as observed by white American missionaries. These descriptions generally demean the practices of Assyrians (historically known as “Nestorians”), Islam, and local customs, and argue for the swift Christianization of Iranians by way of seminary schooling by missionaries.
Price: $300.00