Persia Revisited

Gordon, Thomas Edward, Sir, 1832-1914Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 241K words
Chapters: 25

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Persia Revisited by Sir Thomas Edward GordonAuthor: Gordon, Thomas Edward, Sir, 1832-1914,Language: English, Class: DS: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Asia, Release Date: Jul 30, 2004

Editor's review

This book is a travelogue written by the British diplomat and soldier Sir Thomas Edward Gordon based on his firsthand experiences in Persia (present-day Iran) in the nineteenth century, a free public-domain e-book from Project Gutenberg. Its value lies not in systematic historical research but in recording, from a firsthand perspective, the urban scenes, road travel, local society, and customs of the time, providing primary observational material for understanding social change in modern West Asia. The prose has the leisurely tone of nineteenth-century travel literature, with concrete narration; readers can follow the author's journey to towns and countryside beyond Tehran. It is suitable as supplementary reading in historical geography; read alongside works on modern Middle Eastern history and imperial transport and diplomacy, it gives a more rounded impression. Because it was written early, the book inevitably contains period prejudices and a colonial perspective, and readers should remain critical. In terms of reading setting, it suits readers interested in Iranian history, travel literature, and modern Asia for slow reading in a quiet environment, and also suits public-domain source enthusiasts collecting the e-text.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General readers interested in Iranian and West Asian historical geography
Readers who enjoy nineteenth-century travel literature and firsthand accounts
Beginning researchers studying modern Middle Eastern society and transport
Readers needing free public-domain English sources for comparative reading

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking practical contemporary travel information for Iran
Readers expecting systematic academic argument and rigorous citations
Readers who prefer light novel-style narrative and dislike old-fashioned prose

Reading tips

Read the table of contents and itinerary clues first, marking the towns the author passed on a map to build a sense of space.
Look up place names and people as you go, distinguishing what the author saw from what he heard secondhand.
Read alongside a general history of the modern Middle East, treating the narrative through mutual source verification.
When reading passages on local customs and ethnic evaluations, note the author's period stance and annotate.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book an original English work, and what language level is needed?

This is an English public-domain e-book released by Project Gutenberg, written by the author in English. Readers need fairly fluent English reading ability to follow nineteenth-century travel-literature sentences; if the original is difficult, use a dictionary and slow down, first grasping the main itinerary before detailed description.

Is this book suitable as a travel guide to Iran?

No. The book records Persia as the author experienced it; urban appearance, transport conditions, and social conditions differ greatly from today, and it lacks the lodging, visa, and route information needed for modern travel. It is better as reading material in history and travel literature than as a practical guide.

What period limitations should readers note in the book?

Written in the nineteenth century, the author carries the perspective common to European observers of the time, and his comments on local society and customs may contain prejudice and simplified judgments. Readers should treat the descriptions as records of a particular time and stance rather than objective conclusions, and read critically when encountering evaluative statements.

What are the practical features of the public-domain e-book edition?

The Project Gutenberg edition is free and directly downloadable, convenient for searching and excerpting, and suitable for note-taking and comparative reading. But public-domain e-books usually lack modern editorial annotations and map appendices; readers can supplement with maps and related sources to fill in background beyond the text.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Gordon, Thomas Edward, Sir, 1832-1914 Author · British · 1832–1914

Sir Thomas Edward Gordon (1832–1914) was a British army officer, diplomat and traveller. He lived from 1832 to 1914, and his career spanned military service, diplomacy and travel writing. His representative work, Persia Revisited, records what he observed in Persia and Central Asia and belongs to the nineteenth-century British tradition of travel accounts on the Middle East and Central Asia. Public information about his early education, specific appointments and itineraries is limited, so these cannot be described in detail. Judging from the work held in the collection, his writing focuses on firsthand observation and the sights along the way, combining the calm tone of a diplomat with the curiosity of a traveller. Such travel accounts offered British readers of the time a useful view of the geography, society and customs of Persia and Central Asia, and they remain a source for the study of nineteenth-century travel writing.