Apor Éva (szerk.): Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Könyvtára Keleti Gyűjtemény.

The Stein Library

The Stein Library 24 T

he world famous explorer of Central Asia, Aurél Stein (1862-1943) sent a part of his library - 1112 books - in 1925 to the Academy. In his letter of donation, Stein, who had spent a greater part of his life away from his fatherland, said: "Many a dear memory of my youth ties me to the splendid library of the Academy. During the years I spent in my native town as a secondary school student, I often visited its reading room. Outside my parental home, Sir Aurel STEIN (1862-1943) SERINDIA DETAILED REPORT OF EXPLORATIONS IN CENTRAL ASIA AND WESTERNMOST CHINA CARRIED OUT AND DESCRIBED UNDER THE ORDERS OF H.M. INDIAN GOVERNMENT 8Y AUREL STEIN, K.C.I.E. I spent my most pleasant hours there: I began my Oriental studies, started to wrangle with the Sanskrit language there..." Whenever a work of his was published, he immediately sent a copy to the "splendid library" of the Academy. The rest of Sir Aurel Stein's library, who professed to be Hungarian throughout his life, went over to the Academy fourteen years after his death according to his last will. The Stein bequest arriving from England and India contained 2300 books and offprints, 180 volumes of periodicals, 31 albums of his own photographs and the letters written to him. The negatives of his shots are preserved in the Microfilm collection. The Stein library is the core of the Oriental Collection's material concerning Central Asia, but it also enriched the fields of Iranian and Indian studies with precious works. By way of a tribute, the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences published his last major work, Old Routes of Western Iran, in the Budapest Oriental Reprints series, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death. Stein Aurél eredetifelvétele Sir Aurel Stein's photograph