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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [518v] (1049/1814)
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.
64
PERSIA
as a fortified redoubt against the Bakhtiari freebooters by Daud
fChan, brother of Imam Kuli Ivhan, the celebrated Grovernoi-
General of Fars under Shah Abbas. For two centuries the locality
continued to attract the hostile notice of those formidable tribes
men, and in about 1815 the whole place was rebuilt foi the pio-
tection of wayfarers, the walled enclosure including a mud fort, a
caravanserai
A roadside inn providing accommodation for caravans (groups of travellers).
, a mosque, and baths. The members of the eail^
British Embassies to Persia and travellers in the first half of the
present century were always instructed to keep a veiy shaip look
out in the belt of country stretching southwards from this neigh
bourhood to Dehbid; and in their pages Bakhtiari is a designation
almost interchangeable with the name of robbei. The nomads are
now kept in better order, and Aminabad is no longer a necessary
haven of security. Nevertheless, there are but few signs of life or
habitation on this part of the southward track, so effectually have
the risks and exactions arising from contiguity to the main road
driven away a sedentary population. Neither on the road from
Isfahan to the Gulf did I observe many signs of through traffic.
Caravans of mules and camels are passed, but there is no general
stream of wayfarers nor any migration of families similar to those
so frequently encountered on the Meshed-Teheran road. If the
present extent of traffic between the capital and the cities of Isfahan
and Shiraz is of at all a fixed or normal description there would
be some difficulty in filling a single railway train per diem between
those centres. On the plains hereabouts grows the wild plant from
which the gum ammoniac, or ushak, is derived, and which is more
or less common in the hilly country from Kerman to Kermanshah.
A little beyond Aminabad, the administrative frontier between
Irak-Ajemi and Fars is crossed; and we enter upon the province
which, both in name, in history, and in population, has
the best right to be regarded as Persia Proper, and as
the central hearthstone of Iran. Fars, or Farsistan, is the same
word as the Greek Persis ; and, originally the title of a section
only of the empire of Iran, has begotten the name which
Europeans have, from remote times, applied to the whole. In
this province were the capitals of the Achaemenian kings,
Pasargadse, Persepolis, Istakhr; here the Sassanian monarchs,
whilst they favoured a more western capital, frequently resided,
and have left, in close proximity to the palaces and tombs of their
predecessors, the sculptured records of their own majestic rule;
/
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 [518v] (1049/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213847.0x000032> [accessed 5 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