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In 1961 the Cambridge University Press embarked on its ambitious publication of the multi-volume Cambridge History of Iran, and Avery served as secretary to the editorial board until this task was taken over by Hubert Darke, his colleague and neighbour in the faculty, in 1970. In many ways, they presented an odd combination to their students, Avery being tempestuous, emotional and unpredictable, Darke quiet, dependable and modest, and the source of cups of tea brought in to Avery’s office at regular intervals throughout the day.

The project took several years, culminating in 1991 with the volume From Nadir Shah to the Islamic Republic (which had by then intervened), edited by Avery and two colleagues, and to which he contributed valuable chapters on Nadir Shah and on Printing, the press and literature in modern Iran. Editing the volume was a time-consuming task, especially given Avery’s understandable ennui with checking and imposing consistent bibliographical citations, but one that brought out his expertise in the period to good advantage.

Meanwhile, he served as Dean at King’s in 1967-68 and was the college’s director of studies in Oriental languages. He received a stream of visitors in his elegant rooms on the corner of the Gibb Building close by the entrance to Chapel, where hospitality and conversation flowed. Many Iranians visited, and Avery himself used to refer to his rooms in King’s as “a corner of Iran”. His spoken Persian was fluent and polite; he rejoiced in the sophisticated manners and refinement that were reflected in the language.

Lined from floor to the high ceiling with bookshelves, his study was a magnet for students and colleagues. There Avery held forth in a torrent of entertaining and erudite talk, into which it was often difficult to interject, and from which almost equally impossible to escape, once ensconced in a comfortable armchair and regaled with tea or, more usually, Ballantyne’s whisky. He was often moved to tears in discussing Iran’s history and the beauties of her poetry.

After Arberry’s death in 1969 Avery became director of the Middle East Centre in the Oriental Faculty. His academic work continued to oscillate between the twin poles of his interests, Iran in the modern world and Persian classical poetry. Teaming up once more with John Heath-Stubbs, he published a translation of the Ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyam (1979 — and frequently reprinted by Penguin books).

As in his other translations, Avery was concerned to let the true voice of the poet speak out, without trying to transform it into English poetry (as FitzGerald had successfully done, but at the cost of violating the original). Avery’s sensitivity to Persian idiom and its frequent consonance with English, together with Heath-Stubbs’s own poetic skill, produced a version that is both authentic and attractive to a modern reader. It is hard not to see in some of these verses an echo of Avery’s own often hedonistic lifestyle.

His retirement in 1990 was marked by a collection of essays written in his honour by colleagues and former students. Retirement gave him time for two long-term translation projects closest to his main intellectual concern with Islamic mysticism (Sufism) and its poetic expression. In Iran Avery was instructed in these mysteries by Sayyid Sadegh Gowharin, to whom he made frequent reference, and in Cambridge he benefited also from the erudition of Jalal Morawej in preparing a translation of The Speech of the Birds, the Mantiqu’t-tair of Faridu’d Din ‘Attar, finally published in 1998, with copious annotations.

Avery continued to offer unofficial Hafiz reading classes in King’s and at last he was able to complete The Collected Lyrics of Hafiz of Shiraz, published in 2007 to great acclaim.

Although by then rather infirm and reluctant to travel, Avery enjoyed the publicity, gave lectures in Exeter and London, and held book-signings. He also published his final work, The Spirit of Iran (2007). The subtitle, “A history of achievement from adversity”, sums up his deep attachment to Iran and his empathy for her people and their “special genius of survival”.

This profound love of their country has inspired many Iranians, and did not go unrecognised in Britain. Avery remained extremely well informed of affairs in Iran, was consulted on, and generally disgusted with, British policy towards both Iran and Iraq. In 2001 he was appointed OBE “for the promotion of Oriental studies”, and in 2008 he was presented with the Farabi Award by the Iranian Government in recognition of his services to Persian culture. It was highly gratifying that Avery survived to see his life’s work published and acknowledged for the achievement it was.

If for a divan of lyrics I am seated in the seat of the mighty, what wonder?

I have performed the Sahib-divan’s service for years (Hafiz, poem 312).

At different times Avery maintained a home outside Cambridge, first in his native Derbyshire, and later in Bury St Edmunds, where he often invited students and friends for outings. He was a keen walker, and loved to walk Dovedale or on Holkham beach in Norfolk, but he did not drive, and was thus to some extent dependent on others, and the upkeep of these properties became an unwanted responsibility. On his retirement in 1990 he became a life Fellow of King’s and the college remained his permanent home and in many ways also his family. He never married.

Peter Avery, CBE, orientalist, scholar of Persian, was born on May 15, 1923. He died on October 6, 2008, aged 85