The contribution of E G Browne (1862-1926) to the study of pre-modern Persian poetry, in particular the impact of his reading of pre-modern Persian literary history as presented in the first three volumes of his monumental A Literary History of Persia, remains relevant today. Browne’s role in fostering the academic study of Persian poetry in the west, and his influence on indigenous poetic canonicity in Iran, is worthy of detailed study, but the Cambridge professor’s engagement with and praise for poets of the first half of the nineteenth century have largely gone unnoticed. This presentation analyses a series of statements made by Browne spanning the period 1893-1924 in which he acquaints his readers with those poets he considers the most significant of early Qajar Iran, and encourages them to read their works without prejudice. Repeatedly Browne argues against what he sees as the misperception that no worthy Persian poets appeared after Jami (d. 1492). Although he does comment on a few key Safavid poets, Browne seems most taken by what could be termed the “high Bazgasht period”: the first few decades of the nineteenth century during which the nascent Qajar state co-opted the Isfahan-centred grassroots Literary Return movement that had emerged in the eighteenth century to become the poetic bedrock of its cultural policy. Browne demonstrates that he is not only abreast of literary publications printed in Iran in the 1880s and 1890s, but that he is in regular contact with Iranian scholars based in Iran and the broader Middle East (e.g. Istanbul) engaged in the academic study of Persian poetry. Browne displays most interest in two groups of early Qajar poets: 1) the leading panegyrists of the court (in particular two Shirazi poets, Visal [d. 1846] and Qa’ani [d. 1853]); and 2) Babi poet-martyrs (chiefly Tahira Qurrat al-‘Ayn [d. 1852]). Browne’s connection to Visal and Qa’ani is facilitated through his intimate association with descendants when in Iran (1887-88). In terms of the Babi martyr-poets, Browne’s first-hand experience of the recitation of verses attributed to Tahira Qurrat al-‘Ayn at clandestine Babi-Baha’i gatherings left its mark on him, and her ghazals were among his favourite Persian poems, modern or pre-modern. It seems that Browne not only believed poets of substance had existed in early nineteenth-century Iran, he felt personally connected to their descendants and did not shy away from confessing that he was emotionally affected by their verses and biographies.