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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [542r] (1096/1814)
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.
FROM ISFAHAN TO SHIRAZ
103
them to jollity and to a life of light-hearted nonchalance and gay
carousal. The people of Fars pride themselves upon the purity of
their origin, the correctness of their tongue, and the excellence
of their wit. No doubt we encounter here a less mixed Iranian
type than elsewhere, as is evident from the darker complexions
and cleai-cut featuies, the brown hair and blue or grey eves of
the northern provinces being rarely met with in the south" 4 In
all my life, said the amiable Herbert, who gleefully welcomed the
opportunity of bursting into doggerel, c I never saw people more
jocund and less quarrelsome :—
They revel all the night, and drink the round
Till wine and sleep their giddy brains confound.’
Others have been more sceptical about the second attribute; the
excitability of the Shirazi being a property that renders him
sensitive and irritable, and sometimes prone to outbursts of in
tolerance. The Babi movement started here, and has always
claimed a large number of disciples.
The character of Persian gardens, for its number and quality
of which Shiraz has always been renowned, is, as I have explained
G ^ in other chapters, very different from the European pattern.
From the outside, a square or oblong enclosure is visible,
enclosed by a high mud wall, over the top of which appears a
dense bouquet of trees. The interior is thickly planted with these,
or, as Herbert phrased it, 4 with lofty pyramidal cypresses, broad
spreading chenawrs, tough elm, straight ash, knotty pines, fragrant
masticks, kingly oaks, sweet myrtles, useful maples/ They are
planted down the sides of long alleys, admitting of no view but
a vista, the surrounding plots being a jungle of bushes and shrubs.
Water courses along in channels or is conducted into tanks.
Sometimes these gardens rise in terraces to a pavilion at the
summit, whose reflection in the pool below is regarded as a
triumph of landscape gardening. There are no neat walks, or
shaped flower-beds, or stretches of sward. All is tangled and
untrimmed. Such beauty as arises from shade and the purling
of water is all that the Persian requires. Here he comes with a
party, or his family, or his friends ; they establish themselves under
the trees, and, with smoking, and tea-drinking, and singing, wile
away the idle hour. Of such a character are the gardens of
Shiraz.
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 [542r] (1096/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213847.0x000061> [accessed 13 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