1913 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam : Edmund J Sullivan : Edward Fitzgerald

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

Rendered into English Verse by Edward Fitzgerald

With Drawings by Edmund J. Sullivan

Published by Methuen & Co, London, 1913. First edition thus, de luxe edition of the Edmund J. Sullivan edition. Hardback, decorative cloth binding measuring 26 x 20cm, gilt to top edge, plain endpapers, Unnumbered pages carrying the 75 quatrains of Fitzgerald's version each enriched with its own full-page single-sided monochrome illustration by Edmund J. Sullivan, as well as many fanciful and beautiful drawings, he uses images of skeletons and animated pots, Persian chapter headers.. Howard & Jones Ltd., Art Printers, pulled out some extra stops for this edition which is by far and away the best Sullivan illustrated Rubáiyát. Produced on thicker paper and a larger size than subsequent editions of this illustrated edition published by Methuen. 16 page introduction by the illustrator. Tissue-guarded colour frontispiece.

CONDITION
A fine copy of this de luxe edition. The cloth binding is in very good clean condition with no tearing, stains or marks. The gilt decoration to the boards and spine remains bright and clear. Endpapers good and inner joints secure with no cracking. Binding good and sqaure with no leaning. All contents present and pages very clean throughout and totally free from foxing, stains, thumb marks. etc. Name and date written on front endpaper. Tissue guard that protects the frontis has a little light creasing but there are no tears. Overall a handsome copy in very fine condition.

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his 1859 translation from Persian to English of a selection of quatrains (rubāʿiyāt) attributed to Omar Khayyam (1048–1131), dubbed "the Astronomer-Poet of Persia".

Although commercially unsuccessful at first, FitzGerald's work was popularised from 1861 onward by Whitley Stokes, and the work came to be greatly admired by the Pre-Raphaelites in England. FitzGerald had a third edition printed in 1872, which increased interest in the work in the United States. By the 1880s, the book was extremely popular throughout the English-speaking world, to the extent that numerous "Omar Khayyam clubs" were formed and there was a "fin de siècle cult of the Rubaiyat".

FitzGerald's work has been published in several hundred editions and has inspired similar translation efforts in English, Hindi and in many other languages.

Glass Cabinet 3)