From the library of a U.S. diplomat: an account of the city of Yazd

Malcolm, Napier. Five Years in a Persian Town.

€ 2,500.00

First edition of this detailed first-hand account of the town of Yazd in what is now central Iran, from the library of American soldier, diplomat, and porcelain collector Herbert G. Squiers (1859-1911). The work is illustrated with 12 plates and a folding map of Persia at the turn of the century, and remains quite difficult to locate on the market.

The missionary Napier Malcolm is remembered well enough by the city of Yazd to have ben made the subject of a 2019 documentary by the award-winning Iranian filmmaker Hassan Naghashi. By focusing on a single area of Iran, Malcolm was able to write a much more detailed sketch of the place and customs than the standard British travelogues of his time. For instance, he provides a detailed diagram of the qan'at irrigation system, one of the most extensive in the world and for which Yazd is famous.

The frontispiece is a colour reproduction of a sketch (possibly by Malcolm himself) illustrating "Yezdi types" (although Yezdi is the name of a sibling settlement, this is how Malcolm refers to the people of Yazd, previously anglicized as Yezd). These provide a snapshot of the population, and include a qan'at maker, a "Parsi raiyat, or agriculturist, with his spade", "a Jew, who is divining from his book for the charvadar", an oil-seller who carries his oil in dried gourds, "a darvish, or religious mendicant", and finally "an Arab. These are sometimes seen in Yezd, but like the Lari charvadar they do not really belong to the town". Malcolm also describes the district, "Persian Mohammedanism", and sketches, from a British perspective, the character of the inhabitants of Yazd: listed, among others, are descriptions of, "Etiquette and manners, Triviality, Pride, Kindliness and cruelty, Dishonesty, Difficulty in obtaining anything, Tendency to fatalism, Latent strength of Persian character", etc.