The Road to Oxiana » (Reissue)

Robert Byron was born in England in 1905 into a family distantly related to Lord Byron. He attended Eton and Merton College, Oxford, and wrote several travel books before his untimely death in 1941, while serving as a correspondent for a London newspaper during World War II.

In 1933 the delightfully eccentric Robert Byron set out on a journey through the Middle East via Beirut, Jerusalem, Baghdad and Teheran to Oxiana -the country of the Oxus, the ancient name for the river Amu Darya which forms part of the border between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. His arrival at his destination, the legendary tower of Qabus, although a wonder in itself, it not nearly so amazing as the thoroughly captivating, at times zany, record of his adventures.
In addition to its entertainment value, The Road to Oxiana also serves as a rare account of the architectural treasures of a region now inaccessible to most Western travellers. When Paul Fussell "rediscovered" The Road to Oxiana in his recent book Abroad, he whetted the appetite of a whole new generation of readers. In his new introduction, written especially for this volume, Fussell writes: "Reading the book is like stumbling into a modern museum of literary kinds presided over by a benign if eccentric curator. Here armchair travellers will find newspaper clippings, public signs and notices, official forms, letters, diary entries, essays on current politics, lyric passages, historical and archaeological dissertations, brief travel narratives (usually of comic-awful delays and disasters), and—the triumph of the book—at least twenty superb comic dialogues, some of them virtually playlets, complete with stage directions and musical scoring."

Part 1
Venice     19
s.s. Italia     20
Cyprus
Kyrenia     22
Nicosia     24
Famagusta     25
Larnaca     27
s.s. Martha Washington     27
Palestine
Jerusalem     28
Syria
Damascus     38
Beyrut     39
Damascus     40
Irak
Baghdad     45
Part 2
Persia
Kirmanshah     49
Teheran     50
Gulhek     53
Teheran     54
Zinjan     55
Tabriz     58
Maragha     61
Tasr Kand     62
Saoma     64
Kala Julk     65
Ak Bulagh     66
Zinjan     67
Part 3
Teheran     69
Ayn Varzan     76
Shahrud     77
Nishapur     78
Meshed     79
Afghanistan
Herat     84
Karokh     108
Kala Nao     110
Laman     114
Karokh     116
Herat     116
Persia
Meshed     119
Teheran     123
Part 4
Teheran     125
Kum     133
Delijan     133
Isfahan     134
Abadeh     137
Shiraz     137
Kavar     141
Firuzabad     144
Ibrahimabad     149
Shiraz     157
Kazerun     157
Persepolis     159
Abadeh     169
Isfahan     170
Yezd     178
Bahramabad     181
Kirman     181
Mahun     182
Yezd     184
Isfahan     184
Teheran     185
Sultaniya     192
Teheran     192
Part 5
Shahi     195
Asterabad     197
Gumbad-i-Kabus     199
Bandar Shah     202
Samnan     203
Damghan     204
Abbasabad     205
Meshed     205
Kariz     213
Afghanistan
Herat     216
Moghor     224
Bala Murghab     231
Maimena     233
Andkhoi     241
Mazar-i-Sherif      243
Kunduz     260
Khanabad     264
Bamian     267
Shibar     271
Charikar     274
Kabul     275
Ghazni     277
Kabul     280
India
Peshawar     283
The Frontier Mail     285
s.s. Maloja     285
England
Savernake     286