Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Rendered into English Verse - The Text of the First Edition (The Heritage Press)

New York: The Heritage Press, 1946. Reissue. Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good. 0x0x0. Szyk, Arthur. Includes publisher's slipcase, lacks Sandglass insert. Slipcase edges rubbed and discolored, spine a bit faded. 1946 Hard Cover. [36 pp.] Blue cloth spine, beige paper over boards, blue decorations, gilt titles (these colors are flipped compared to the design of the earlier 1940 Heritage Club edition). Rendered into English verse by Edward Fitzgerald. Color illustrations in color and gold by Arthur Szyk. Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his 1859 translation from Persian to English of a selection of quatrains attributed (truncated) 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 siecle 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. (Inventory #: 2331854)