The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

FITZGERALD, Edward; Introduction by A. C. Benson; Illustrated by E. Geddes.

$1,600.00

Item Number: 146936

London: Siegle, Hill & Co, c. 1919.

Finely bound edition of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, rendered into English Verse by Edward Fitzgerald and reproduced from a manuscript written and illuminated by F. Sangorski & G. Sutcliffe. Quarto, bound in full deerskin with gilt titles and ruling to the spine in six compartments within raised bands, gilt borders and blind stamping to the front and rear panels, gilt turn-ins and inner dentelles, illustrated with twelve full-color drawings by E. Geddes and engraved borders, initials, and writing by A. Sutcliffe. In very good condition.

Eleventh-century Persian poet and mathematician Omar Khayyam composed more than one thousand quatrains, or rubaiyat, on love and mortality, expressing an enigmatic theology that has been interpreted and disputed over the course of centuries. Scholar Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883), first translator and author of five separate English versions of the Rubaiyat, did not produce strict translations as much as loose "transmogrifications" of the poetry, often taking great liberties with the original Persian text. Nevertheless, he remains the most famous of Omar Khayyam's translators, and is credited with bringing the Rubaiyat to broad public notice in the English-speaking world.