'NEWLY FOUND' MANUSCRIPTS THAT WERE NEVER LOST

In the early 18th century the famous Dutch missionary and student of the Netherlands East Indies, Francois Valentijn, amassed a most valuable collection of about 30 Malay manuscripts. However, by the mid 20th century only one manuscript from this collection in the original and five others in later copies were extant in Dutch and British libraries. The fate of the rest was unknown. But in 1974 three more manuscripts from Valentijn's collection, Hikayat Isma Yatim, Syair Perang Mengkasar and Ma'rifat Islam, fleetingly appeared at Sotheby's only to disappear yet again as it seemed at that time. However, these found their way into the collection of Muzium Seni Asia of Universiti Malaya, and resurfaced in 1994 in the form of a splendid facsimile edition, which drew surprisingly little attention. This article investigates salient features of the manuscripts, their contents and value for Malay literary studies, their three-century long journey across the Malay world to Europe and back to the Malay world, and the people involved: Malay and Arab writers and their royal patrons, copyists and collectors, auctioneers, booksellers and academics.