[MONEY (Robert Cotton).]

Journal of a Tour in Persia, during the years 1824 & 1825.

Intimate Letters on Qajar Persia - Association Copy

First edition. Folding map. 8vo. Original boards, later green cloth spine and printed label; corners slightly bumped, very good otherwise. Small marginal paper flaw to B1. Attractive ownership inscription of the author’s wife to title page, “Mary Money. Bombay. 1831.” [iv], 256pp. London, [privately printed by the parents of the author], printed by Teape and Sons, Tower Hill, 1828.

£4,750.00

A candid account of Persia, written by a British diplomat in his first years of service. Privately printed by Money’s parents, the present copy belonged to his wife.

Robert Cotton Money (1803-35) was educated at Westminster and the East India College in Hertford. After three years at the latter he was appointed as assistant to Col. Ephraim Stannus (1784-1850) who was British Resident in the Persian Gulf. Comprised of letters to his parents, the journal is not a sober delineation of his working life, but rather a series of personal reflections. It is nonetheless a valuable account of Persia in the years just before the Russo-Persian War of 1826-28.

The journal begins at Bushire, where Money and Stannus were based. There is a good description of the port city and an outlining of his superior’s role: “Colonel S. has to visit, conciliate, settle differences between, and curb the piratical spirit of all the Arab Sheikhs on the opposite coast.” (p.9). Though further details of the challenges facing Stannus are scant, the task of deterring the Persian court from invading Bahrain is mentioned (see p.73).

From Bushire, Money travelled Northward, to Shiraz, Isfahan, and Tehran, and Westward to Kermanshah. His descriptions of each city, along with the towns and archaeological sites en route, are fresh and unguarded; flickering from engagement with Persian culture (translating Hafiz for his parents) to the desire to return home (nostalgia for church bells).

Decidedly Christian, Money is most effusive when tracing the movements of the missionary — and translator of the New Testament into Persian — Henry Martyn (1781-1812) in the Armenian Quarter of Isfahan. Other vivid passages abound: Money questioning the too-small stature of Sir John Malcolm in a Qajar painting; an old Parsee and his elegy for Captain Charles Christie (d.1812); a meeting with Fath-Ali Shah Qajar (1772-1834) in Teheran.

The audience with the Shah took place in late December 1824. Money saw much to compliment in the Persian monarch — “His eye has much fire in it and nothing of malice, his brow is open but with a great deal of humour lurking beneath” (p.156) — but also sensed the instability of his Empire, drawn in the contrast between the finery of the royal chamber and the harshness of everyday life in Persia.

Rare. Only presentation or family copies have appeared at auction, pointing to a very limited print run. Copac/Jisc and WorldCat locate copies at the British Library, British Museum, Harvard, Koninklijke Bibliotheek and London Library.

Wilson, p.148; not in Ghani.

Stock No.
229340