Landmark Books in All Fields
ItemID: #120896
Cost: $600.00

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Edward Fitzgerald

“A JUG OF WINE, A LOAF OF BREAD—AND THOU…”: THE RUBAIYAT, IN PUBLISHER'S ELABORATE CLOTH-GILT

(FITZGERALD, Edward) DOLE, Nathan Haskell, editor. KHAYYAM, Omar. Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Rendered into English Quatrains. Boston: L.C. Page, 1899. Octavo, original gilt-stamped olive cloth, top edge gilt, uncut. $600.

Later edition of this timeless classic, with frontispiece portrait of Fitzgerald and 12 photographic etchings after drawings by Gilbert James and Edmund H. Garrett, in publisher's lovely cloth-gilt.

Composed in 12th-century Persia and rendered into English by Edward FitzGerald (his first version appeared in 1859), these stanzas express "the desire to snatch the utmost of pleasurable sensation from the irretrievable passing moment… [but also] more sober thoughts of the Power that has created beauty and in man a capacity to appreciate beauty but has cursed him with transience… In words and cadences of haunting loveliness a desolating message was communicated to numberless hearts" (Baugh, et al., 1417-18). This edition includes a reprint of the first edition (1859), the second edition (1868), and the fifth edition (1889), with additional notes about minor variants including those found in the third edition (1872) and the fourth edition (1879). "Standard Edition of the Five Versions" with color vignette title page. Armorial bookplate.

Minor foxing to endpapers, mild toning to spine, gilt bright. A handsome copy.

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