Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
with illustrations by Edmund Dulac
Few works of literature can offer a Cinderella story to match that of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, who lived in Persia from 1048 to 1131, was most famous in his time as a mathematician and astronomer, but he also composed about a thousand four-line poems, and it is to these quatrains that the Persian word "rubaiyat" refers.
After Omar Khayyam's death, the Western world knew very little about these poems for several hundred years. In the early Victorian period a wealthy young Englishman, a somewhat reclusive amateur scholar with many literary interests and friendships, Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883), learned Persian, and in the process came across the poems of Omar Khayyam.
"A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse — and Thou, Beside me, singing in the Wilderness," is only one of the memorable verses from Edward FitzGerald's translations of poems by the 11th-century Persian sage Omar Khayyám.
This magnificent version of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám reproduces the edition published by Hodder & Stoughton of London in 1909, in which the timeless poems are accompanied by full-color images by Golden Age illustrator Edmund Dulac. Critics and collectors have long debated which book represents the peak of Dulac's career, and many agree that his affinity for Persian art makes this gloriously illustrated volume a strong contender.
An illustrated gift edition of the quatrains of Omar the tentmaker, which have more admirers today than ever before. Edward Fitzgerald's rendition stands as a monument to the translator's art.
Full-color photographs throughout.
hardcover
160 pages
