Armenia; A Year At Erzeroom, And On The Frontiers Of Russia, Turkey And Persia Curzon, Robert Turkey, The Caucasus And Middle East

First edition. Small octavo volume (5 by 7¾ inches). xiv plus 253 pages, with a frontispiece and title page vignette, 4 plates, 2 text illustrations, and a sketch map. Full blue morocco, spine in six compartments titled in gilt, with elaborate gilt inner dentelles. Title page and frontis heavily foxed, but otherwise pages are largely clean. Elaborate heraldic bookplate of Thomas Somers Cocks to the front pastedown. Very good condition overall. Curzon, who later became the fourteenth Baron Zouche, was a traveler, manuscript collector, and author. Attached to the British Embassy in Constantinople, he was engaged in defining the boundaries of Persia and Turkey. Curzon traveled extensively around the monasteries of the Mediterranean and Middle East area, including Egypt, Jerusalem, Armenia and Athos, where he purchased ancient manuscripts, many of which were later donated to the British Museum. This book records his travels in the Kurdish areas along the border between Turkey and Persia from "the mountainous country beginning at Mount Ararat toward the north, and continuing southward toward the lowlands, where the Shat al Arab, the mighty river formed by the junction of the Tigris and the Euphrates, pours those great volumes of water into the Persian gulf."