![Annotated Copy of <em>Persia and the Persian Question</em> by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [‎73r] (152/1814)](https://iiif.qdl.qa/iiif/images/81055/vdc_100000001491.0x00033b/Mss Eur F111_33_0163.jp2/full/!1200,1200/0/default.jpg "Annotated Copy of <em>Persia and the Persian Question</em> by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [‎73r] (152/1814)")
Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [73r] (152/1814)
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
13
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house, yet the
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uch changes as
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ain to others
nperfectly ex-
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e of his letters
r Gordon and
;ses of Africa,
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a less perilous
ia, makes biui
ime, animated
at in the
to mountaM
outes that ai’ e
or ditches, ^
the unhampered choice both of means of progression and of pace,
there is a joyous revulsion from the sterile conventionality of life
and locomotion at home. Something, too, must be set down to
the gratified spirit of self-dependence, which legions of domestics
have not availed to subdue, and to the love of adventure, which not
even the nineteenth century can extinguish. Or is it that in the
East, and amid scenes where life and its environment have not
varied for thousands of years, where nomad Abrahams still wander
with their flocks and herds, where Rebecca still dips her water
skin at the well, where savage forays perpetuate the homeless
miseries of Job, western man casts off the slough of an artificial
civilisation, and feels that he is mixing again with his ancestral
stock, and breathing the atmosphere that nurtured his kind ?
Upon the vivid and never failing contrast between the picture
and the furniture of existence in the East and 'West, as an element
Contrast °f attraction, it is needless to enlarge. The most casual
between visitor to the true East is no stranger to its strange in-
and West tensity. Countries which have no ports or quays, no
railways or stations, no high-roads or streets (in onr sense of the
term), no inns or hotels, no bedsteads or tables or chairs, but where
a traveller is sufficiently equipped so long as he is provided with
a saddle and some soap, are severed by a sufficiently wide gap
from our own to appeal to the most glutted thirst for novelty. Do
we ever escape from the fascination of a turban, or the mystery of
the shrouded apparitions that pass for women in the dusty alleys ?
How new to us is a landscape where there are no hedgerows or
timber, no meadows or fields; where in the brilliant atmosphere
minute objects can be distinguished for many miles, 1 where the
cities are not swathed in smoke, and the level roofs are not broken
by shafts or chimneys. How mute and overpowering the silence
that prevails over the lone expanse, so different from the innumer
able rural sounds that strike upon the ear at home. And how
grateful a climate where fogs and vapours never strangle, but
where the sun strikes with straight lance from the zenith.
In no Oriental country that I have seen is the chasm of ex
terior divergence between Oriental and European scenery more
abrupt than in Persia. It is difficult to bring home to English
1 I have seen a small object, such as a single hut or building, for at least
twenty miles before reaching it; and every traveller in Persia will confess to the
frequent exasperation of hope thus baffled and delayed.
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 [73r] (152/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213842.0x00009f> [accessed 5 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