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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [73v] (153/1814)
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.
readers, whose ideas of nature are drawn exclusively from the'
West, the extremity of the contrast that meets the eye. Mountains
Extreme in Europe are for the most part blue or purple in
m Persia co l our • Persia they are flame-red, or umber, or funereal
drab. Fields in Europe, when not decked with the green of grass
or crops, are crimson with upturned mould. In Persia they are*
only distinguishable from the brown desert by the dry beds of the
irrigation ditches.' A typical English village consists of detached
and often picturesque cottages, half hidden amid venerable trees.
A typical Persian village is a cluster of filthy mud huts, whose*
outline is a crude combination of the perpendicular and the hori
zontal, huddled within the protection of a decayed mud wall.
Outside the Caspian provinces and a few mountain valleys there
is not a forest, and barely a wood in Persia that is worthy of
the name. One may travel for days without seeing a blade of
grass. Rivers do not roll between trim banks, nor do brooks
babble over stones. Either you are stopped by a foaming torrent
or you barely moisten your horse’s fetlocks in fording a pitiful
thread.
r or my own part—so normal and blunted after a while do these-
sensations become I find a more abiding charm in the contrast
Intrinsic existing, not between the lives of the East and West, but
contradic- in the elements and conditions of Oriental life itself.' It
is a contrast equally visible in the inanimate and in the
mman world. Extensive plains are suddenly terminated, almost
without slope or undulation, by gaunt and forbidding peaks. A
rear and colourless desolation in winter is succeeded by riotous
mug ep mineral, verdure and a thousand tints of flowers in the-
kave^he r “A 6 f 6611 md cultivated s P0ts, the moment we
leave the charmed circle of water distribution the stark desert
recommences, and the transition is as awful as from life to
and winter entran ° ln ^. warmth <% is expiated in the autumn
^ “‘ 1 W imme-
eitreme Zrf 8 T » siting the
tom,a U1> “ " ,racul0, “ “ d inexhaustible gamut of
Ana how faithfully go the cities an! people respona to the-
“• 8 = r.?at.T,:,i q r " o ;r UhI -
heads amid aesetted wastes aud vagabond Sf
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 [73v] (153/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213842.0x0000a0> [accessed 15 February 2025]
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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