Moritz von Kotzebue (1789 1861), son of the German dramatist and an experienced seaman and soldier, who had faced Bonaparte's troops on the battlefield, travelled to the court of Fath Ali Shah Qajar (1772 1834), the king of Persia, with a Russian embassy in 1817. His account of the journey was published in German in 1819, and an English translation was published in the same year, claiming to offer a different perspective from the ordinary run of British writings on Persia. Covering the journey from St Petersburg through the Caucasus and down to Soltaniyeh, where the embassy meets the Shah,...