Born in Franconia, the son of a rabbi, Joseph Wolff (1795–1862) was baptised in 1812, moved to England in 1819, and became a Christian missionary. He travelled widely in the Near East, Middle East and Central Asia, enduring shipwreck, robbery and disease. His Researches and Missionary Labours among the Jews, Mohammedans, and Other Sects (1835) and the miscellaneous Travels and Adventures (1861) are also reissued in this series. First published in 1845 and reissued here in the revised second edition of that year, this work records Wolff's journey to the Emirate of Bukhara (in present-day Uzbekistan) to investigate the disappearance of two British officers. In Volume 2, Wolff offers further observations on the region's culture, religion and military history. He discovers that the missing men had been executed by one of the Emir's subordinates, Abdul Samut Khan, who also attempted to kill Wolff, though he narrowly escaped.
