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Excerpt: ...now I seriously thought of precipitating myself, rather than submit to the tyrant. But a few hours after I had had the blessing to discover you on the bridge, I had been ordered to hold myself in readiness to receive him; and it was then that I had positively determined in my own mind to throw myself headlong out, either once more to bejoined to you, or to die in the attempt. When I shut the lattices in haste, several women had just come into the room to conduct me to the hot bath previously to being dressed; and when I had made some excuse for delaying it, and had sent them out of the room, it was then that I opened the lattice a second time, and put my resolution into practice.' Yusuf having finished the recital of his and his wife's adventures, was very anxious to know what part I would take, and earnestly entreated me to befriend him by my advice and assistance. The morning was far spent. My men were already mounted, and ready to proceed on our reconnoitring expedition, and my horse was waiting for me, when a thought struck me, which would settle every difficulty with regard to the young Armenian and his wife. I called him to me, and said, 'After what you have related, it will be impossible to leave you at liberty. You have, by your own account, run off with a woman from the serdar's seraglio, a crime which you perhaps do not know, in a Mussulman country, is punished with death, so sacred is the harem held in our estimation. If I were to act right, I ought not to lose a moment in sending you both back to Erivan; but that I will not do, provided you agree to join us in our present expedition, and to serve us as guide in those parts of the country with which you are best acquainted.' I then explained to him the nature of my office, and what was the object of the expedition. 'If you are zealous in our cause, ' said I, 'you will then have performed a service which will entitle you to reward, and thus enable me to speak in your favour to the serdar...… (more)
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In 1895, an edition was published with a foreword by George Curzon who praised the books and said of them [...] I believe that the future diplomatist or traveller who visited Persia, or the scholar who explored it form a distance, would from their pages derive more exact information about Persian manners, and acquire a surer insight into Persian character, than he would gain from years of independent study or months of local residence.'
Seriously?
With all due respect to Curzon, even at the time, I would be reluctant to trust so much to picaresque novels with all their satire and cynicism, even if Morier got all the local color right. More than a century later, of course, Persia is now Iran, the Shahs are gone, and I would urge people to read it for the fun of it.
The story is cast as a manuscript, written by Hajji Baba, which he fears to take back with him to Persia after his adventures in England. He entrusts it to one Peregrine Persic, who is sending the translation to the chaplain of the Swedish Embassy at the Ottoman Porte. Hajji Baba is a barber, working with his father in Ispahan, when his yen for adventure leads him to take service with a merchant, Osman Aga, and he is off on wild and woolly series of events sometimes tragic, generally dramatic, and often funny.
He is taken captive by nomads, nearly executed a few times, rises in favor at court, and then falls, but always manages to regain his footing and be off on nee adventures.