A Literary History of Persia (4 volumes)

Volume 1: From the Earliest Times to Firdawsi

Volume 2: From Firdawsi to Sa’di

Volume 3: The Tartar Dominion (1265 – 1502)

Volume 4: Modern Times (1500 – 1924)

G. Browne’s magnum opus is his A Literary History of Persia (1902, 1906, 1920 and 1924) and is regarded as his greatest and most enduring contribution to Persian studies. It is an intellectual history of the Persians and not merely the history of the poets and authors who expressed their thoughts through the medium of the Persian language; the manifestations of the national genius in the fields of Religion, Philosophy, and Science interested the author at least as much as those belonging to the domain of Literature in the narrower sense; while the linguistic vehicle through which they sought expression was indifferent.

Browne wrote in the preface to the first volume of this massive work: “I had cherished a desire to write a history of the intellectual and literary achievements of the Persians, somewhat on the lines of that most admirable work, Green’s Short History of the English People, a work which any writer may be proud to adopt as a model, but which few can hope to rival and more to surpass”.

This monumental work ran to well over two thousand pages tightly packed with learning and enlivened by a rare literary grace. It has been translated into Arabic, Persian and Urdu in whole or in part.