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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [84v] (175/1814)
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.
36
PERSIA
circumstances of his family were known. After fifty years of me
tropolitan supremacy Kazvin was itself superseded by Isfahan,
Shah Abbas the Great finding in the southern capital a more con
venient centre for his extensive dominions. Pietro della Valle, the
travelled Italian, was here in 1618, during the lifetime of Shah
Abbas, but found in it ‘ nothing to satisfy the expectations of
a royal residence, and only two things worthy of observation, the
gate of the King’s palace and the grand meidan or square.’ On
the other hand, Sir Thomas Herbert, the quaint historian of the
embassy of Sir Dodmore Cotton from Charles I. to Abbas the
Great, who accompanied Sir Robert Sherley and the English envoy
hither after their bootless interview with the Persian monarch at
Ashraf in 1627, reported of Kazvin that it was c equal for grandeur
to any other city in the Persian Empire, Spahawn (i.e. Isfahan)
excepted; ’ 1 that its walls were seven miles in circuit, and its
population 200,000. Here poor Sir Robert Sherley, fretting
at his rebuff and at the inconstancy of princes, died on July 13,
1627, and was buried under the threshold of the door; 2 and here,
only ten days later, his companion, Sir I). Cotton, stricken down
with dysentery, followed him to the grave. 3 Chardin, who was at
Kazvin half a century later, in 1674, describes its walls as then in
ruins, the town having ‘ lost all those perquisites that set forth the
pomp and grandeur of a sumptuous court; ’ but says that it
nevertheless contained 12,000 houses and 100,000 inhabitants, and
that its chief feature was the palaces of the grandees, which had
Passed for generations from father to son. 4 It was taken by the
1 Herbert was phonetic rather than accurate in his spelling. Thus he con
verted Julfa into Jelphea, Teheran into Tyroan, Larijan into Larry John, and
the Padishah, or title of the sovereign, into Pot Shaw. In the previous century
the English factors in Gilan generally transliterated Shah Tahmasp into Shaw
Thomas, which had not a very regal sound.
I cannot resist quoting the quaint language of Herbert: ‘And hence came
those discontents, nay, that arrow of Death that arrested him; for upon the
13th, of July he gave this transitory world an ultimum vale in his great climac
teric .— Some I eares Travel (3rd edit.), p. 212.
Like discontents long conflict with adverse dispositions, and fourteen days
consuming of a flux (occasioned, as I thought, by eating too much fruit, or
sucking in too much chill air upon Taurus), brought that Religious Gentleman,
feir Dodmoie Cotton our Ambassadour, to an immortal home. The 23rd of July
he bade the world Adieu.'— TMd., p. 213.
4 2“. pt- ii- PP- 378-382. Vide also a description of Kazvin in 1600 by
VjknlZs V reaCher, l ParahaS ’ m9rimS ' " lib - *• cap 4 and in l6n
by John Struys, Toy ages, vol. m. cap. xxiv.
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 [84v] (175/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213842.0x0000b6> [accessed 10 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