"بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي من إعداد السيد المحترم جورج ناثانييل كورزون، عضو البرلمان." [‎٧] (٧١٤/١٤)

PREFACE
This .book, which is the result of three years" almost uninterrupted
labour, of a journey of six months' duration to the country con
cerned, as well as of previous travel in adjacent regions, and of
communications maintained ever since with the most qualified resi
dent authorities in Persia, is issued in the not, I hope, vainglorious
hope that, until superseded by a better, it may be regarded as the
standard work in the English language on the subject to which
it refers. When I went out to Persia in the autumn of 1889 as
correspondent to the 'Times,' my immediate object was to furnish
to that paper, in a series of communications, necessarily limited
in number and length, a resume of the political situation in the
Shah's dominions. 1 At the same time I profited by the opportunity
to collect a great deal of additional information, which it was out
of my power to utilise upon that occasion, and to fill many gaps
of which earlier study had revealed the existence in the con
temporary knowledge of Iran. It is the information thus amassed,
and since supplemented by continuous investigation and corre
spondence, that forms the material of these volumes.
As I advanced further into the examination of my subject, I
very soon realised how inadequate were our existing sources ot
knowledge about Persia. Though excellent, and in some cases
monumental works upon tlie^ country had been published in the
first-quarter, and even as late as the middle ol the present century,
there had not since the latter date appeared a single comprehensive
1 These letters, seventeen in number, appeared at intervals in the 'Times'
from November 1889 to April 1890.