James Justinian Morier
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
James Justinian Morier (1782 – March 19, 1849) was a British diplomat and author noted for his novels about Qajar dynasty Persia, most famously for the Hajji Baba series.
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[edit] Early life
He was born in 1782 in Ottoman İzmir (Smyrna), the second son of Isaac Morier, a Swiss-born merchant, British by naturalisation, and a member of the London-based Levant Company, and Elizabeth Clara Van Lennep. After private education in England, he worked in his father's İzmir business between 1799 and 1806.
[edit] Diplomatic career
[edit] Career in Persia
He first visited Persia in 1808 as secretary to Harford (later Sir Harford) Jones, a special British envoy to the Shah, publishing an account of his experiences in 1812 under the title A Journey through Persia, Armenia and Asia Minor to Constantinople in the years 1808 and 1809. In 1809 he accompanied the Persian envoy to Britain, Mirza Abul Hasan, and in 1810 returned to Persia as Secretary of Embassy on the staff of Sir Gore Ouseley, first ambassador to Persia. He remained there as Chargé d'Affaires in 1814 until 1816 and after his return to England he published A Second Journey through Persia to Constantinople between the years 1810 and 1816.
[edit] Commissioner to Mexico
He married Harriet Fulke Greville in London in 1820 and between 1824 and 1826 he was special commissioner to Mexico negotiating the treaty with that country that was eventually ratified in 1827.
[edit] Novelist career
With his knowledge of Eastern life and manners he wrote several entertaining novels. The most popular of these was The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan (1824) and its sequel The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan in England (1828). There followed Zohrab the Hostage (1832), Ayesha the Maid of Kars (1834), and The Mirza (1841), all full of brilliant description, character-painting, and delicate satire, and several others of lesser quality.
[edit] Death
Morier died at Brighton on 20 March 1849, his wife in London in 1858.
[edit] Legacy
Operation Hajji Baba, a humanitarian airlift operation conducted in 1952 by the US Air Force, took its name from the Hajji Baba novels.
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- This article incorporates public domain text from: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J.M. Dent & sons; New York, E.P. Dutton.
- Johnston, Henry McKenzie. Ottoman and Persian Odysseys. I B Tauris & Co Ltd, 1998.
- Boyne, Walter J. "The Pilgrim Airlift". Air Force Magazine, March 2007.
[edit] External links
- The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan, excerpt at Project Gutenberg
- Ayesha, Maid of Kars at Google Books
