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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [242v] (487/1814)
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.
tess* «a=!^—
292
PERSIA
circular mound to a total height of perhaps eighty feet from the
plain. The citadel has fallen into rum, and the buildings in its
interior are a litter of rubbish and bricks. But the vil-
Lasgira lasers have established themselves in the deserted enceinte,
and on the very top of the outer walls, have built a double storey of
mud houses, which are only accessible by flights of crazy steps
from the interior, and the most remarkable feature of which is a
ledge or balcony built out from each storey with rude logs of wood
plastered over with mud. Upon this rickety platform, which has
nothing in the shape of a railing to prevent anyone from falling
off and which is full of holes, the inhabitants appear to live their
outdoor life. The place, from a little distance, looks as if a gigantic
colony of birds had settled there and built out their nests from the
walls' the outer shape of the entire mound resembling a huge cask.
It is entered by a steep stairway from the ground, mounting to a
small postern, the door of which is a single block of stone swung
on a pivot. I entered, arrd scrambled up the rude flights of steps
in the interior, and poked my nose into some of the nests—I cannot
call them cottages—in the upper stoi gys. The women e e un
veiled and steeped in squalor. The general condition of the
tenements was very much like what the domestic economy of a
rookery might be expected to be. Here the same dialect is spoken
as at Semnan. The citadel is surrounded by a deep, broad fosse,
converted into garden-plots, the revenues of which go to swell the
endowment of the Imam Reza at Meshed.
After leaving Lasgird the route conducts through a hilly
region which has been furrowed by winter torrents into deep gullies
Road to anc ^ ra vnms crossed by bridges. Upon descending again
Kishiak ^i ie plain, the village of Deh Nemek (Salt 'V illage)
can he seen, at least twelve miles away, in the middle of an un
utterably barren and repulsive desert. Few things are moie
treacherous in Persian travel than this false expectation induced by
the sight of one’s destination at the apparent distance of a few
miles only, or more wearying than the disappointment that follows
as the miles lengthen out into farsakhs, and the end never seems
to come. What, in the distance, had appeared a settlement of two
buildings only, turned out to be a village with a good many houses,
hidden in a little semi-fertile depression of c the level waste, the
rounding grey.’ In the succeeding strip of country—which is uot
less desolate—we pass, at the villages of Padeh and Aradan, 1 fuithei
1 Fraser calls this place Heratoo.
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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 [242v] (487/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213844.0x00005e> [accessed 6 April 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