A Survey of Shuae Shirazi’s Life and Works and Codicology of His Poems

Mirza Mohammad Hossein Shuae Shirazi, pen named "Shuae" and tagged "Shuae al-Mulk", is one of the great biographers and poets of the Qajar era and the early Pahlavi age. Earlier researchers have talked briefly about his life and circumstances and they have not mentioned some of his works or have even made mistakes which are addressed in this essay. Unfortunately, although he is considered one of the greatest poets of Fars in that age, his bulky Divan has not been published yet. There are thirteen manuscripts of his poems scattered in the libraries of the University of Tehran, the center of the Great Islamic Encyclopedia, and the Farmanfarmayan Library; each of those copies will be introduced and discussed in this article. The data of this article have been collected using library sources and an attempt has been made for the first time to analyze the texts that Shuae Shirazi edited, wrote, or composed. In this research, Shuae's personal library, one of the few private libraries in Iran, is recognized as containing the main sources for compiling his biography; besides, some books available in that library have been identified and introduced.