Malay Manuscripts and Early Printed Books at The Library of Congress

Abstract

This article has two purposes.Its primary purpose is to describe the Library of Congress holdings of Malay manuscripts and early printed books in terms of their provenance and contents and to highlight the role played by the nineteenth-century missionary Alfred North in acquiring most of the collection. The second purpose is to begin to suggest the significance of the documents for Malay studies. The Library's holdings of Malay manuscripts, although limited in extent, concern the history and literature of the Malay world in the first half of the nineteenth century. Unlike twentieth-century imprints, which are generally accessible in North America and elsewhere, these early volumes may be the only copies extant.