"DULAC AT HIS MOST IMAGINATIVE, REVELING IN THIS CORNUCOPIA OF EASTERN FANTASY": DULAC'S SPLENDID RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM

(DULAC, Edmund). Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Rendered into English Verse by Edward Fitzgerald, With Illustrations by Edmund Dulac. London: Hodder and Stoughton, [1909]. Quarto, modern full red morocco gilt, raised bands, original patterned endpapers retained. $1800.

First trade edition of Dulac's illustrated Rubaiyat, with 20 lovely full-color illustrations tipped onto gilt-bordered card, handsomely bound in full morocco-gilt.

"The obvious choice for Dulac's 1909 Christmas gift book was The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as that year marked the centenary of the birth of Edward Fitzgerald, the poem's best-known translator. The 20 superb color plates again show Dulac at his most imaginative, reveling in this cornucopia of Eastern fantasy" (Dalby, 82). Composed in 12th-century Persia and rendered into English by Edward Fitzgerald, these stanzas express "the desire to snatch the utmost of pleasurable sensation from the irretrievable passing moment" (Baugh et al., 1417). "Printed from the second edition," as stated on the copyright page, refers to the second edition of Fitzgerald's English translation, which appeared in 1868. Dulac's illustrated edition first appeared in a signed limited edition of 750 copies in 1909, the same year as this trade edition; later trade editions typically appeared with only 12 of the color plates.

Fine condition.