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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [249v] (501/1814)
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.
PERSIA
304
nearly identical estimate was made by the English travellers
Morier and Ouseley, who were at Teheran within the next few
years. The former said it contained 12,000 houses, the latter a
population of from 40,000 to 60, 000 , figures which practically
coincide. As such, or, at any rate, not veiy much laigei, it re
mained during the first seventy years of this century, before it
02 £-p 0 P^ 0 j]. 00 d the entire renovation at the hands of ^NTasi—ed—Em Shah,
which I shall presently describe.
What, however, was the appearance of the city in this first
epoch of modified rejuvenescence ? The narratives and the illustra-
Its tions of a long series of minute and accomplished writers
appearance 0 na bl 0 ns to ascertain with absolute certainty. Planted
in the hollow of the plain, and surrounded only by the stark desert,
with few or no suburbs, and with clearly-defined outline, stood the
— a fortified polygon 5 between four and five miles in exterior
circuit, surrounded by an embattled mud wall twenty feet high,
flanked with circular towers, and defended by a moat forty feet in
width and from twenty to thirty feet in depth. The wall was
mean and in parts ruinous, the ditch was clumsy and broken down
—in both respects, that is to say, profoundly Persian. Six gates
of somewhat gaudy construction, adorned with glazed tiles, ad
mitted to the interior, where 4 the streets were narrow and filthy,
with uncovered drains in the middle,’ and where the only building
of any pretentiousness was the citadel, or ark, in the northern part
of the town. This contained the Eiwan-khaneh-i-Shah, or Ear-i-
khaneh (i.e. the Royal Palace). Beyond the city walls the country
palace of Kasr-i-Kajar, built by Path Ali Shah, upon an eminence
to the north, was the sole object that relieved the brown monotony
of the surrounding plain. Eemavend soared loftily over all—the
one noble feature in the landscape. Such was the Teheran that
met the eyes of Malcolm and Harford Jones and Ouseley, and the
long train of soldiers, diplomatists, and writers, who, escorted by
brilliant cavalcades and equipped with costly presents, marched up
hither from the Gulf in the first decade of the present century, to
court the superb graces of Path Ali Shah.
Up till the year 1870 this, with few alterations, remained the
Teheran with which a wealth of writers has made us familiar. In
Old British this circumscribed city the British Legation, or Mission,
Mlsslon as it was called, was situated in the southern part. The
grounds originally belonged to one Mohammed Khan, the Zam-
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 [249v] (501/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213844.0x00006c> [accessed 22 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