Single volume, illuminated MS on paper with very fine marbled paper borders, in Farsi. 119 leaves, complete, 336 x 230 mm; single column, 11 lines to a page written in neat nasta'liq script in black ink, with occasional headings and significant words in blue. Inner margins ruled in gold and blue, outer borders throughout decorated with fine marbling, one illuminated opening headpiece, one further illuminated heading; contemporary burgundy leather binding, blind-stamped with corner pieces to covers - a very handsome volume. The use of decorative marbled borders is very unusual. Marbled paper was often used to decorate album pages and calligraphic panels from the 16th century onwards and was very much a tool used to elevate the design and appeal of a single artistic creation. The only other known example textual MS to include marbled borders to this high degree was copied by the same scribe as the present MS and was a translation of Voltaire's "Histoire de l'Empire de Russie sous Pierre le Grand and Histoire de Charles XII, roi de Suede."; a refernce to this secondary text is given in the preface of this MS: "Ibn Muhammad Khan Safdar 'Ali is to produce this text as well as the "History of Peter the Great" thus confirming that the two volumes were undeniably associated at the time of production and assembled in this style at the bequest for the same patron. Little is known about this particular calligrapher, however, he is recorded in Mehdi Bayani as 'an obscure nasta'liq cartographer of the nineteenth century', with the only recorded work being a calligraphic page in the Archaeological Museum in Delhi, signed Sayyid Safdar 'Ali. This work was originally assembled by James Campbell at the bequest of the Qajar Prince Abbas Mirza in 1813, the present MS presumed to be a translation of that original text. James Campbell was an assistant surgeon in the East India Company, who travelled to Persia with Sir John Malcolm. He became Chief Surgeon to the Qajar Prince Abbas Mirza (Governor of Adharbayjan and son of Fath' Ali Shah Qajar) from 1810-1814 before travelling to Russia with Sir Gore Ousley in 1814.