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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [192v] (387/1814)
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.
PEKSIA
206
which is now so advantageously utilised by our rivals. I regard
the history of British commercial intercourse with Persia as one of
the most remarkable chapters in the little-known or forgotten
annals of this country ; and at a later stage I shall have something
to say of the indomitable gallantry with which, in ages when
merchants required to wield the sword almost as deftly as the pen,
the representatives of English trading companies carried the flag,
and the merchandise, and the high name of Great Britain into
lands where all risked and many lost their lives in each venture,
and whence those that returned were welcomed with no plaudits
from crowded halls, and received no medals from royal societies.
Among the ideas that fired the imagination of John Elton, the
gifted but unstable Englishman, who himself both created and
destroyed that revival of the British Caspian trade in the middle
of the eighteenth century, whose history has been so minutely
recorded by one of the prominent actors in the scene, Jonas
Hanway, was that of establishing a British
factory
An East India Company trading post.
at Meshed, and
of importing, via Astrabad, the woollen cloths of London, which
were to be exchanged at the capital of Khorasan for the fabled
wealth of the East. With what a grim irony we now read the
sanguine words in which he recommended his plan to the British
Minister at St. Petersburg :—
The British merchants cannot have any formidable rivals to contend
with, or to apprehend, in the trade from Meshed to Bokhara. They can
never be supplanted in this trade so long as they secure a passage for
their goods through the Empire of Bussia, and a freedom of navigation
on the Caspian, both of which it will be the interest of the sovereign of
Russia to grant to the subjects of Great Britain . 1
How this too fanciful picture of a generous and unsuspecting
Russia and a money-making England failed of realisation will be
told later on. Here I will relate only the brief history of its
application to Meshed. Hanway himself penetrated as far as
Astrabad, in December l/4o, with the merchandise which he
proposed to transport from thence by caravan to Meshed ; but he
got no further, foi during his stay in the city a rebellion broke out
against Nadir Shah, his goods were seized and plundered, and he
was within an ace of being sold in slavery to the Turkomans.
Two other factors, however, of the Russian or Muscovy Company
J Historical Account of British Trade over the Caspian, by Jonas Hanway
vol. i. pp 4 37-39. J ’
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 [192v] (387/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213843.0x0000c2> [accessed 6 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