Edward FitzGerald / Edmund J Sullivan - Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam The First and Fifth Versions - 1932

Scarce 1st US Numbered Edition c1932 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam The First and Fifth Versions of Edward Fitzgerald Illustrated by Edmund J Sullivan Hartsdale House New York

DESCRIPTION

Publishers' Original floral decorated cloth board Binding. Illustrated throughout with wonderful striking wood block cut illustrations. Unpaginated, Collated, complete.

 Very Good condition throughout with som slight occasional foxing, inscription to front end paper and 3 blocks of written text on centre pages which does not detract from the book in any way

A glorious read with sumptuous vibrant illustrations by the renowned illustrator Edmund J Sullivan on every other page, individually numbered 200502

'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam' was the title that Edward Fitzgerald gave to his 1859 translation of the Persian quatrains attributed to second century Persian mathematician and astronomer Omar Khayyam. Fitzgerald's was the first English translation.

Fitzgerald's translations, however, are fairly loose; he referred to his work on them as a 'transmogrification'. Some therefore considering that his translation of 'Rubaiyat' could be considered as Fitzgerald's own original poetry, only loosely based on Khayyam's quatrains.


Synopsis
Philosopher, astronomer and mathematician, Khayyam as a poet possesses a singular originality. His poetry is richly charged with evocative power and offers a view of life characteristic of his stormy times, with striking relevance to the present day.

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".[1]

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

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