Robert Hillenbrand, "The Great Mongol Shahnameh" (Hali Publications et al., 2022)
New Books in Literary Studies
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The Demote's Manuscript
The manuscript was removed illegally from the Royal Library and made its way to Paris, where it fell into the hands of a ruthless vandal. He tried to sell the book to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York at a price which today would not buy one of the leaves, $100,000. And so he simply carved it up, like pastry at a baker's. When a given leaf had a picture on both sides, he split it down the middle. But because the leaves are all in different places, it's been unreasonably difficult to look at this manuscript as a whole. There is now only one leaf in private ownership.
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