INTO CENTRAL ASIA DURING THE GREAT GAME
MARVIN, Charles Thomas.
‘The manuscript of’ Colonel Grodekoff’s ride from Samarcand to Herat, through the Balkh and the Uzbek states of Afghan Turkestan; with his own map of the march-route from the Oxus to Herat. By Charles Marvin …
London, Wm H. Allen, 1880.
Manuscript on paper, in English, 4to (c. 215 x 175 mm), ff. [380]; written in ink, generally to rectos only, in Marvin’s hand (with the contents pages in a different hand), c. 20 lines per page, several crossings through and corrections; printed title pasted to first page with ‘The manuscript of’ in ink at head and ‘From March 10 to April 5 1880’ at foot; small folding MS ‘Map of the Uzbek Khanate’ within text, 2 copies of a folding engraved Russian map showing Grodekov’s route bound in at end, the first annotated in English by Marvin and the second inscribed to Marvin by Grodekov in Russian; occasional slight marks and tears, small tears to maps at end; overall well preserved in half dark purple half roan over pebbled cloth boards, gilt fillets to spine, upper cover lettered in gilt ‘Grodekoff’s ride to Herat – Manuscript – Charles Marvin March 1880’; some loss to spine ends and splitting to upper joint, some wear to corners and edges; printed label ‘Charles Marvin’ to front pastedown and his signature at head of title; preserved in a modern clamshell box.
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‘The manuscript of’ Colonel Grodekoff’s ride from Samarcand to Herat, through the Balkh and the Uzbek states of Afghan Turkestan; with his own map of the march-route from the Oxus to Herat. By Charles Marvin …
Marvin’s own manuscript of his English translation of Nikolai Ivanovich Grodekov’s account of his remarkable journey from Samarkand (Uzbekistan) to Herat (Afghanistan), published in 1880 in the midst of the ‘Great Game’ between the British and Russian empires for control of Central Asia.
‘In the autumn of 1878, a Russian staff officer, Colonel N.I. Grodekov, rode from Tashkent via Samarkand and northern Afghanistan to Herat, carefully surveying the route. In Herat he carried out a thorough examination of the city’s defences, and claimed on his return that its inhabitants were eager for Russian rule’ (Hopkirk, The Great Game, p. 388). Grodekov (1843–1913) was promptly rewarded for his intrepidity by the Tsar and published a successful account of his expedition in 1879.
An expert on Russian affairs, Marvin (1854–1890) quickly recognised the importance of Grodekov’s work to the Russo-Indian question and composed this English translation. Dedicated ‘To England’s warmest supporter in her rivalry with Russia, Arminius Vámbéry’ (the Hungarian Turkologist and traveller), this manuscript includes several leaves at the end marked ‘Pages thrown out during revision’.
Bound in after the text are two copies of a Russian map showing Grodekov’s ‘March route from the Ferry of Patta Keesar, on the Oxus to Herat’, the first annotated in English by Marvin, and with a note recording how much he paid for it at ‘the Russian Etat Major’, and the second inscribed to Marvin by Grodekov in Russian on 1 March 1880 from St Petersburg.
Marvin would later pen the popular work The Russians at the gates of Herat (1885) ‘written and published within a week, which sold 65,000 copies’ (Oxford DNB).
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