The Persian Revolution of 1905-1909.

Cambridge: at the University Press,, 1910. Foundational study of an "epoch-making episode in the modern history of Persia" First and only contemporary edition. Detailed account of the Persian Constitutional Revolution by the era's foremost authority on the region. The events described gave Persia its first parliament, and a constitution which in effect lasted until the Islamic Revolution of 1979. An appendix contains full translations of the documents constituting the "Bases of the Persian Constitution". Browne (1862-1926), was originally intended for a career in medicine taking the natural sciences tripos at Pembroke College, Cambridge. The Russo-Turkish War (1877-79) attracted his sympathies to the Turks, leading him to study the language, and after graduating "he spent the long vacation in Constantinople where he deepened his knowledge of Ottoman, Persian classical poetry, and Sufism" (ODNB). He returned to Cambridge and took the Indian language tripos in 1884 before resuming his medical studies and qualifying as a doctor in 1887. He made his first and only trip to Persia in 1887-88, "He visited Tabriz, Tehran, Esfahan, Shiraz, Yazd, and Kerman, avoiding European society as much as possible, and throwing himself with ever-increasing interest into the company of Persians, mystics, dervishes, and Kalandars, whose friendship and confidence he gained to a degree hitherto unparalleled". Already a fellow of Pembroke, in his absence he was appointed university lecturer in the Persian language, later additionally Sir Thomas Adam's professor of Arabic. Over the next quarter of a century he published extensively, his most important work being A Literary History of Persia (1902-24), a turning point in the study of Persian history and literature, and "still not completely superseded as the standard authority on the subject" at the close of the 20th century. However, such was his commitment to the Persian cause - Browne was "incomparably more sympathetic to the Persian constitutional movement than was any other European" (Encyclopaedia Iranica) - that he broke off from work on the next volume, and concentrated all his energies on publishing, lecturing, and the organization of the Persia Committee to put pressure on the Government to change course. As with his four-volume masterpiece Browne's technique in the present work depends on an exhaustive analysis of original sources. In a contemporary review, leading American Persianist Albert Howe Libyer describes how the book "may be described as a well-selected and well-arranged series of translations, abstracts, and quotations, connected and interpreted in a moderate and convincing manner". This is without doubt the most important contemporary study of this "epoch-making episode in the modern history of Persia". Octavo. Original vivid red cloth, lettered in gilt to the spine, white cloth onlay panel to front board with Persian "manuscript" in black, red, and gilt, top edge gilt. Half-tone frontispiece and 41 other plates, one of them double page, 2 full-page facsimiles and a folding map. Ex-New South Wales, Library of Parliament with their gilt supralibros, single ink stamp to title page and at foot of p. 100, spine a little dulled and spotted, overall slightly rubbed, endpapers spotted and browned, pale toning to the contents and some sporadic spotting, overall very good, typical of copies from this source. Albert H. Libyer, "The Persian Revolution of 1905-1909", The American Political Science Review, August 1912.