![Annotated Copy of <em>Persia and the Persian Question</em> by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [‎76r] (158/1814)](https://iiif.qdl.qa/iiif/images/81055/vdc_100000001491.0x00033b/Mss Eur F111_33_0169.jp2/full/!1200,1200/0/default.jpg "Annotated Copy of <em>Persia and the Persian Question</em> by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [‎76r] (158/1814)")
Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [76r] (158/1814)
The record is made up of 2 volumes with inserts (898 folios). It was created in 1892-1924. It was written in English, Urdu and German. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
INTRODUCTORY
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Holstein; to the Capuchin Pere Pacifique cle Provins we must
refer for the standpoint of France ; Kaempfer, the Westphalian,
went out to Persia as Secretary to the Embassy sent by Charles XT.
of Sweden. The same, or seventeenth century, is the great era at
once of Persian grandeur and of foreign additions to the literature
of travel. A succession of instructed voyagers, drawn to the
country either by commercial interests or by a taste for explora
tion, succeed each other with great rapidity upon the scene, and
have bequeathed to us, as a record alike of their own industry, and
of the opportunities that were placed at their disposal by a Court
consistently favourable to foreign intercourse, a number of works,
almost monumental in character, dealing with every aspect of the
national life, and enriched with elaborate, if not always accurate,
copper-plate engravings. In their pages we find not merely a
contemporary record of the habits and customs of the Persian
people, and of the pomp and pageantry of the Sefavi kings, but the
first attempt to give a minute and illustrated description of the
great ruins at Persepolis and other places, which already attracted
the concern, while suggesting ludicrous reins to the fancy, of the
literati of Europe. Pietro della Yalle, a Roman of good family, and
the husband of a Nestorian lady whom he wedded at Baghdad, but
lost by death while in Persia, though pilloried by Gibbon as
intolerably prolix and vain, is the first in date of this voluminous
school of authors, prolixity and vanity being pardonable vices in a
writer
The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping.
who lifts for our gaze the dim curtains of the past. He is.
succeeded by Jean Baptiste Tavernier, the well-known French
jeweller, who included the Court of the Grand Sophy (as the
Persian monarch was then called in Europe from a misadaptation
of the name of the dynasty), as well as that of the Great Mogul,,
within the range of his businesslike peregrinations ; by Chardin,
clarum et verierabile nomen, a French Protestant, and also a
jeweller, who, after writing his magnum opus on Persia, retired in
later life to England, upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
and died a Knight and Alderman of the City of London ; by
Thevenot and Daulier-Deslandes, also Frenchmen ; by Sanson, a
French Missionary; by Dr. Fryer, surgeon to the East India
Company, who is only less quaint and comical than Herbert; and
by Cornelius Le Brun, the Dutchman, who was always ready with
his measuring rod and pencil, and while freely denouncing the
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About this item
- Content
These two volumes are George Curzon's own personal annotated copies of both volumes of his book Persia and the Persian Question , which was published in 1892. Alongside the volumes are various loose papers relating to Persia [Iran], consisting of the following: received correspondence; newspaper cuttings; publishers' press releases; cuttings from various booksellers' catalogues; various journal and magazine articles; two items of printed official British correspondence; several prints of photographs and sketches; and a few handwritten notes by Curzon.
In most cases these papers, which range in date from 1892 to 1924, relate to the chapters in the book where they were originally inserted, suggesting that they were kept by Curzon with the intention of using them to inform a revised edition of the book.
Of particular note among the small amount of correspondence are two letters received by Curzon in 1914 and 1915 from retired schoolmaster and Islamic scholar Sayyid Mazhar Hasan Musawi of Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India (ff 5-9 and ff 44-53). These letters, which are written in Urdu and are accompanied by English translations, discuss in detail several inaccuracies found in the Urdu version of Persia and the Persian Question .
The various prints of photographs and sketches, which were originally inserted into volume two, are of different locations in the Gulf region. Several of these appear to have been produced in preparation for the publication of the second volume of John Gordon Lorimer's Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , Oman and Central Arabia (i.e. the 'Geographical and Statistical' section) in 1908, as they are identical to the versions found in that volume.
Also of note among the loose papers are an illustrated article from Country Life dated 5 June 1920, entitled 'The People of Persia' (ff 36-37), and a printed family tree of the Shah of Persia [Aḥmad Shah Qājār], produced in preparation of his visit to Britain in 1919 (f 233).
Volume one of Persia and the Persian Question contains a map of Persia, Afghanistan and Beluchistan [Balochistan], which is folded inside the front cover (f 1).
The German language material consists of a publisher's press release for two books authored by German archaeologist Ernst Emil Herzfeld (ff 29-30).
- Extent and format
- 2 volumes with inserts (898 folios)
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: this shelfmark consists of two physical volumes. The foliation sequence commences at the first folio of volume one (1-463), and terminates at the last folio of volume two (ff 464-898); these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. Each volume contains a large number of loose leaves, which have been foliated in the order that they were inserted into the volume; for conservation reasons, these loose folios have been removed from the volume and stored separately. The foliation sequence does not include the front and back covers of the two volumes.
Pagination: the file also contains an original printed pagination sequence.
- Written in
- English, Urdu and German in Latin and Arabic script View the complete information for this record
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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [76r] (158/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213842.0x0000a5> [accessed 8 July 2026]
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- Reference
- Mss Eur F111/33
- Title
- Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Questionby George Curzon, with Inserted Papers
- Pages
- 54r:135v, 147r:149v, 158r:180v, 183r:221v, 224r:224v, 227r:246v, 248r:257v, 259r:260v, 268r:362v, 364r:364v, 367r:388v, 390r:400v, 402r:416v, 419r:432v, 434r:444v, 448r:462v, 464r:471v, 475r:481v, 483r:513v, 516r:525v, 527r:544v, 546r:563v, 566r:598v, 600r:622v, 624r:656v, 658r:665v, 667r:675v, 678r:684v, 687r:688v, 691r:691v, 693r:693v, 695r:708v, 711r:721v, 724r:726v, 728r:729v, 731r:736v, 742r:742v, 746r:757v, 759r:761v, 763r:763v, 765r:765v, 772r:777v, 780r:789v, 793r:794v, 797r:809v, 811r:821v, 825r:840v, 843r:898v
- Author
- Curzon, George Nathaniel, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston
- Usage terms
- Public Domain