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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [240v] (483/1814)
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.
288
PERSIA
Dismissing, however, the identity of Damghan with Hekatompylos
as a question of purely speculative interest, we may find enough of
romance in the history of the town under its modern name. 1 It
is needless to say that Jenghiz Khan destroyed it once, or to add
that Timur destroyed it again. That was a compliment invariably
paid by those rival scourges of humanity to urban magnificence.
Don Ruy di Clavijo, passing through Northern Persia on his embassy
from the Castilian King to the Court of the Great Tartar in 1404,
found still standing at Damghan two towers of human heads set in
mud, which, but a few years before, the latter had erected as a trophy.
8hah Abbas rebuilt the town and constructed its citadel. Here, in
October 1729, Nadir Shah gained his great victory over the Afghan
Ashraf, which heralded the final expulsion of the aliens in the
following year. Here, in 1763, Zeki Khan, the savage half-brother
of Kerim Khan Zend, being despatched to quell a revolt of the
Kajar tribe, planted a garden with his prisoners, head downwards,
at even distances; and here, in 1796, perished the miserable
grandson of Nadir, Shah Rukh, from the effects of the inhuman
torture inflicted upon him at Meshed by Agha Mohammed Shah.
In the present century Damghan is said to have been finally ruined
by a friend, instead of a foe, having never recovered from the en
campment here, for three months, in 1832, of the army of Abbas
Mirza on its way to Herat. No flight of.locusts could have in
flicted a more wholesale devastation. The population is reported
now to be 13,000. I cannot credit it.
After leaving Damghan the road strikes due west, and traverses
first a gravelly, and afterwards a richly-cultivated, plain to Ghushah,
Dowleta- a P^ ace consisting only of two buildings—a
caravanserai
A roadside inn providing accommodation for caravans (groups of travellers).
bad and a posthouse, which the exigencies of travel have
conjured up in an otherwise untenanted expanse. The only in
teresting spot passed on the way is the deserted fort of Dowletabad,
with a triple wall of enclosure, surrounded by a deep fosse. Sixty
years ago Sergeant Gibbons, an Englishman serving in the army of
Abbas Mirza, said it was c one of the best little forts he had seen
in Persia.’ 2 Its chief, who had held out for some time against the
exactions of the provincial Governor, offered Abbas Mirza a bribe
) 1 For early notices of Damghan, vide Istakhri, Vih‘ Reg nor nm, p. 211 ; Mu-
kaclessi, Descrijrtio Imperii Moslemici, p. 256 ; Yakut, Diction,naive Geographical
p. 283.
2 Journal of the R.G.S., vol. xi. p. 136 (1811).
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 [240v] (483/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213844.0x00005a> [accessed 12 June 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