Introduction

James Justinian Morier’s travels to Persia, present-day Iran, as a representative of the British government at the beginning of the nineteenth century, gave him unique insight into a region not well documented among the contemporary European intelligentsia. While Morier is better known as the author of fictional works such as The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan, published in 1824, his first success as an author came from the 1812 publication of a travelogue entitled A Journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Constantinople, in the Years 1808 and 1809, followed by a second volume, entitled A Second Journey Through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Constantinople, published in 1818.1
 Morier’s publications describe his itineraries, as well as the people, language, culture, religion, art, and architecture that he encountered along the way. To date, most scholarly research devoted to Morier has focused on his fiction; however, his travelogues, which reveal a carefully constructed reality of his journeys, warrant further research.

In the early nineteenth century, the European perception of Persia was still very much shaped by fiction such as the popular eighteenth-century novel Arabian Nights.2
 (For more information on Orientalism in journeys to the Near East, please see Ada Berktay’s essay, “The ‘Voyage en Orient’: Narratives of the East, as Written by the West.”) In contrast –- and even though Morier later turned to the genre of fiction –- his travelogues focused on his actual journeys, using his lived experience as the basis for his accounts. This paper focuses on Morier’s travelogues, comparing them with Sir Robert Ker Porter's travel book, Travels in Georgia, Armenia, Ancient Babylonia, &c. &c. During the Years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820, which also relied on a combination of texts, images, and maps. Maps were ubiquitous in nineteenth-century travel narratives, and vital to both future travelers and the authors who first undertook the journey “as a means to create, recreate, personalize and define the countries traveled to in published accounts of their journeys.”3
 Morier's travelogues, including their maps (Figs. 1 and 2, and Fig. 3), provide a visualization of his journeys, whose reality contrasts with Hajji Baba's imaginary adventures throughout Persia. 

In a letter to his brother David dated February 1, 1817, Morier wrote that his aim with A Second Journey was to document:

Scripture texts by modern manners . . . [leaving] out trifling details of days marches, entertainments, processions, isteqbals etc, & only inserting such circumstances as would come in aid of my principal object. But in doing this, how much other information would be lost! Manners that exist, without a corresponding subject in antiquity to illustrate – geography, topography, antique remains, modern towns etc, on all of which I have much to say, & what I trust would be found new.4

The eventual publication included the “much he had to say,” and, despite Morier's somewhat tenuous grasp on the interpretation of antiquities, was well-received. The travelogue was considered enlightening for a European audience who had little knowledge of the Persian people and culture, and, according to Henry McKenzie Johnston, was more readable than the first one.5
 Most importantly, Morier's two travelogues avoid, with varying degrees of success, the pitfall of stereotype that characterizes numerous eighteenth-century novels authored by European writers.6
 James Watt has observed that “although the fashion for literary exoticism survived throughout the nineteenth century, many travelers to the region aligned themselves with this increasingly influential ‘anti-romance’ position, and sought to return the attention of the reader to what they represented as a more prosaic actuality.”7
 Morier’s travel accounts were published at the beginning of this “anti-romance” turn, aiming at objective analyses of Persia, that were nonetheless grounded in Orientalist thought. As Morier wrote in the preface to his first travelogue:

It is to be expected, that the extensive communication that will be opened with Persia, in consequence of our late political transactions with its court, will throw the whole extent of that very interesting part of the globe under our cognizance; and that, among other subjects of inquiry, its numerous antiquities, which have as yet been but perfectly explored, will throw new lights upon its ancient history, manners, religion, and language.8
 

Beyond alluding to Britain's diplomatic relations with the Persian Court, Morier's words speak to the British imperialist stance vis-à-vis Persia, insofar as the British presence there is equated with an entitlement to survey Persian civilization. Through this surveying process, the British people, assuming the role of the knowing subjects, asserted their position of domination and power.

The Grand Tour and Journeys to the East

Morier published his travelogues at a time when accounts of the Grand Tour of Europe were popular both to write and to collect. For the British elite, the Grand Tour offered the opportunity to travel across France, Germany, and most importantly Italy, while learning about philosophy, literature, art, architecture, and the world of classical antiquity. The Grand Tour allowed young adults to complete their education with field research and the ability to acquire works of art for the estates they were to inherit. Many recorded their voyages in notebooks and sketchbooks, and publishing these became more and more popular. Book-length narratives often sought to capture an audience that was eager to read about the daring heroics of the brave travelers, while other types of documentation, such as diaries, letters, and field notes, also served as critical sources of information about Grand Tourists' experiences.9

While Grand Tourists widely continued to visit Italy well into the late nineteenth century, some British travelers begun to venture further to the East. An early example is Richard Pococke, who in 1737 embarked on a three-year journey, visiting Egypt, the Holy Land (present-day Israel and Palestine), and the Ottoman Empire (including both present-day Turkey and Greece). Pococke recounted his voyage in a travelogue published in 1743 entitled A Description of the East, and Some Other Countries.10
 For British travelers, visiting Persia became safer in the early nineteenth century, due to diplomatic agreements made during the Napoleonic Wars that protected British and Persian interests from the French and the Russians,11
 as discussed by Euan R. Wall in “The historical context of James J. Morier’s travels: France, Britain, and Persia, 1798-1815.”

Morier’s Travelogues

In A Journey Through Persia, Morier carefully constructs an image of Persian society and culture based on his observations during his travels. While he includes personal anecdotes, historical and geopolitical remarks also help him build his narrative. In addition, the book includes illustrations made after the sketches he completed during his trip, further emphasizing the reality of his experience, as argued by Mo Zhang in “Illustrations in James J. Morier’s Travelogues: Turning Sketches Into Prints.” 

In his article “Tears in Tehran/Laughter in London: James Morier, Mirza Abul, Hassan Khan, and the Geopolitics of Emotion,” Daniel O’Quinn notes about A Journey Through Persia:

The book was an ambitious venture that represents Persian society and culture in two ways. On the one hand, it narrates the envoys’ movement through Persian spaces and succinctly describes the social exchanges with the people they encounter. On the other hand, large sections of the narrative are given over to proto-archaeological accounts of early Persian culture . . . Morier’s representation of Persian culture swings back and forth between the distant past and the fleeting present of Iranian life, which is quite typical of nineteenth-century accounts of “manners and customs,” . . . The negation of present social relations in favour of antiquarianism is counter-balanced by Morier’s expansive representations of ritual performances and entertainments, which carry with them a sense of endlessly repeated traditions that dissolve the conventional distinctions between past and present.12

O’Quinn eloquently describes the ostensible temporal ambiguity characterizing Morier’s travelogue, where the emphasis on the enduring practice of Islamic rituals allows the author to cast the contemporary Persian people in the role of the unchanging "Other" -- a component of Orientalism that Edward Said analyzed in his 1978 book.13
 Indeed, Said argues that Orientalism involves both the “newly found scientific self-consciousness based on the linguistic importance of the Orient to Europe,” and the “proclivity to divide, subdivide, and redivide its subject matter without ever changing its mind about the Orient as being always the same, unchanging, uniform, and radically peculiar object.”14
 From this point of view, A Journey Through Persia participates in the Orientalist discourse. 

In addition, and still following Said's argument, the intricate, detailed maps included in Morier's travelogues indicate the books' scientific ambition. The maps are meticulously labeled, while the routes that Morier followed, including related topographical and geographical information, are detailed in the text. Morier also created a diagram to visualize his entire trip, including his stopping points along the way, as shown in “The Route from Tehran to Asterabad in 1815” (Fig. 4). Finally, the books are illustrated throughout with elaborate vistas and panoramas that were engraved after his sketches and site plans. In documenting his trips so rigorously while traveling (Figs. 5 and 6), then publishing his accounts and augmenting them with maps, Morier created the framework for future British travelers wishing to embark on their own journey to Persia. 

Comparing Morier’s Travelogues with Sir Robert Ker Porter’s Travelogue

In 1821, shortly after the publication of Morier’s second travelogue and perhaps inspired by its success, Sir Robert Ker Porter published a competing account of his own voyage to Persia, entitled Travels in Georgia, Armenia, Ancient Babylonia, &c. &c. During the Years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820. As its predecessor, Porter’s travelogue -- a much lengthier publication than Morier’s -- explores Persian customs. On the other hand, comparing to Morier's, it discusses architecture at greater length. Indeed, A. Olinen, the Russian Imperial Secretary of State and the President of the Academy of Fine Arts, had assigned Porter to voyage to Persia to compile accurate records not only of the region and its inhabitants, but also of its art and architecture. Porter’s maps read more like engineering drawings comparing to Morier’s (Fig. 7), emphasizing the route he followed and the process of traveling from one destination to another, but also the topographic features of the area he depicted. Porter uses the conventions of architectural site plans to indicate information about depth and elevation. Morier's map, however, is a more linear representation of his journey than Porter's, which hints towards the physical challenges one encounters in traveling through mountainous regions and also journeying across vast deserts. While both authors utilize maps to supplement their perspectives, Morier’s maps assist the story of his own experience, while Porter’s serve as documentary evidence of the places he visited and their location in relation to one another. In both cases, maps serve as documentary evidence of a route taken, but Porter uses his to visually communicate further what kind of terrain he encountered on his journey. 

In the preface to Porter's travelogue, Olinen writes, “In this great perplexity to a lover of antiquity, I place my confidence in your plain dealing; that you will decide the controversy, by taking the trouble to make your drawings on the spot, and with scrupulous exactness copying the object before you line by line.”15
 In contrast, Morier states in the preface of his first travelogue that he published it because the British people seemed curious about Persia: “Finding, on my arrival in England, that curiosity was quite alive to every thing connected with Persia, I was induced to publish the Memoranda which I had already made on that country: more immediately as I found that I had been fortunate enough to ascertain some facts, which had escaped the research of other travellers.”16
 While Morier and Porter published their volumes within a few years of one another, their approaches were therefore quite different. Documentation and narration play unique roles in each book and each author claims to maintain accuracy and truthfulness, yet the resulting publications offer differing analyses of the East. The way each employs the use of maps is indicative of these variations. Morier uses maps to link his stories and anecdotes together, almost as a sort of literary framing device. For Porter, the maps are evidence that further reinforces the narrative of his journey. In a way, Morier's maps serve as a supplement to the travelogues' indices and tables of content, while Porter's maps serve as another type of supporting illustration.

Conclusion

Morier’s travelogues vividly describe his journeys with the Mirza Abul Hasan Khan throughout the East. These publications set a model for individuals looking to follow an itinerary less frequented by Grand Tourists, since the art and architecture of this region had not yet been extensively documented and visited by European travelers. Following in Morier’s footsteps, subsequent visitors documented the natural and architectural features of the intriguing East and, ultimately, return to Western Europe with an enhanced perspective on the region.

Other than his personal communications and archives, Morier's travelogues (in conjunction with the Mirza’s own publication Hayrat Namah, or Book of Wonders that detailed the perspective of a Persian dignitary as he visited Great Britain) provide an account of contemporary Persia that was unparalleled at the time.17
Morier delights in telling the everyday occurrences along the route he traveled as for a visitor like him, the Persian everyday provided a exciting opportunity to learn about Persian culture, tradition, and the Islamic religion. As Morier wrote in his “Preface,” “Having confined myself, with very few exceptions, to the relation of what I saw and heard, it will be found unadulterated by partiality to any particular system, and unbiased by the writings and dissertations of other men. Written in the midst of a thousand cares, it claims every species of indulgence.”18
 In the early nineteenth century, Morier’s publications offered a generation of scholars, businessmen, diplomats, and travelers a comprehensive map to plan a journey to the East.

• 1James Morier, Journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Constantinople, in the Years 1808 and 1809; in which is included, Some Account of the Proceedings of His Majesty’s Mission, Under Sir Harford Jones, Bart K.C. to the Court of the King of Persia. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1812. Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University (P915.5 F). James Morier, A Second Journey Through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, Between the Years 1810 and 1816. With a Journal of the Voyage by the Brazils and Bombay to the Persian Gulf. Together with an Account of the Proceedings of His Majesty’s Embassy under His Excellency Sir Gore Ouseley, Bart, K.I.S. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1818. Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University (P915.5 F).
• 2James Watt, “Chapter Four: James Morier and the oriental picaresque,” Comedy, Fantasy, and Colonialism, ed. Graeme Harper (London; New York: Continuum, 2002), 59. Arabian Nights was first published in French by Antoine Galland as Les mille et une nuit in twelve volumes between 1704 and 1717. The text was widely read and translated into most major languages. By the late eighteenth century, many references to Persia were predicated on the identity forged through this text.
• 3Jordana Dym, "The Familiar and the Strange: Western Travelers' Maps of Europe and Asia, ca. 1600-1800," Philosophy and Geography 7, no. 2 (August 2004): 156. Ser Robert Ker Porter, Travels in Georgia, Armenia, Ancient Babylonia, &c. &c. During the Years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row, 1821. Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University (P915.5 I).
• 4Henry McKenzie Johnston, Ottoman and Persian Odysseys: James Morier, creator of Hajji Baba of Ispahan, and his brothers (London; New York: British Academic Press, 1998): 206-207.
• 5Johnston, Ottoman and Persian Odysseys, 207.
• 6On page 59 of “Chapter Four: James Morier and the oriental picaresque,” Watt cites Petis de la Croix’s Persian and Turkish Tales (1714), Montesquieu’s Persian Letters (1721), John Hawkesworth’s Almoran and Hamet (1761), and Frances Sheridan’s The History of Nourjahad (1767) as examples of works that made readers more aware of Persia in eighteenth-century Britain and contributed to the sense of Persia a “congenial setting for works that dealt in terms of abstract morality and the universal human condition.”
• 7Watt, “Chapter Four,” 60.
• 8Morier, Journey through Persia . . . 1808 and 1809, x.
• 9Alasdair Pettinger, “Travelogues,” Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450 Vol. 3, ed. Thomas Benjamin (Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007), 1081.
• 10Richard Pococke, A description of the East, and some other countries. ... By Richard Pococke, LL.D. F.R.S. London: printed for the author, by W. Bowyer; and sold by J. and P. Knapton, W. Innys, W.Meadows, G. Hawkins [and 6 others in London], 1743-45. Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University (F a4254 reel 4954, no. 1.).
• 11For a more in-depth analysis of the political context of Morier’s journeys, also see Daniel O’Quinn's essay, “Tears in Tehran/Laughter in London: James Morier, Mirza Abul, Hassan Khan, and the Geopolitics of Emotion,” Eighteenth-Century Fiction 25, no. 1 (Fall 2012): 85-114.
• 12O’Quinn, “Tears in Tehran/Laughter in London: James Morier, Mirza Abul, Hassan Khan, and the Geopolitics of Emotion,” 90.
• 13See Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979).
• 14Edward Said, Orientalism, 98.
• 15Sir Robert Ker Porter, Travels in Georgia, Armenia, Ancient Babylonia, &c. &c. During the Years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820, (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row, 1821), vii.
• 16Morier, Journey through Persia . . . 1808 and 1809, i.
• 17Abū al-Ḥasan Khān Īlchī, Ḥayratʹnāmah : safarnāmah-ʼi Mīrzā Abū al-Ḥasan Khān Īlchī bih Landan / bih kūshish-i Ḥasan Mursilʹvand. Tihrān : Muʾassasah-i Khadamāt-i Farhangī-i Rasā, [13]64 [1986]. Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University (DA683 .I43 1986g).
• 18Morier, Journey through Persia . . . 1808 and 1809, i.