Memories of a bygone age: Qajar Persia and Imperial Russia 1853-1902

Set against the backdrop of the remorseless decline of Iran and its unequal struggle against the rising powers of Russia and Britain, Prince Arfa's memoirs (1853-1902), packed with picaresque adventures, narrate his rise from humble provincial beginnings to the heights of the Iranian state.

He writes wittily of the deadly intrigues of the Qajar court and of the power of the eunuchs.

He sadly, but resolutely, chronicles the decline of Iran from a once great empire to an almost bankrupt, lawless state, in which the latent social unrest is channelled and exploited by the clergy.

He describes the interaction between Iran and Europe: the weary, profligate Naser-od-Din Shah's 1889 visits to Britain and France; the splendour and eccentricities of the doomed Tsar Nicholas II's court.