Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

I just received a fine copy of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám today, a 1999 reprint of the 1970 edition with drawings by Virgil Burnett. I would very much like to also own a copy of the most recent edition with illustrations by Niroot Puttapipat. As it is a relatively expensive book, I am hoping I can wait until there is a sale to get a better deal.

As I am new to FS, I have three questions: when was this edition released and is it likely to remain in stock for a while? How often does FS have 20% off sales, or others of the kind?

The current edition was released in October 2012. And it is gorgeous :) Noone can tell you when it will become OOP...

Sales with 20% off almost never happen BUT new books outside of the prospects are usually 20% off for a while (usually until the next batch). The Sales up until this year were following the seasons... but with the changed Spring Sale to the Big Set Sale, noone can predict what will happen next.

Thanks Annie. I guess I can call them to at least get some idea of how many they have in stock presently. I know that compared to the LEs it's a bargain, but I've not yet spent quite that much for a book (other than OOP art books) before and I find the price tag a bit daunting, especially once you add tax and shipping.

Do you own this particular edition?

I believe there are still several thousands in stock, the binding is quite nice, Nigerian goatskin with crushed Vendome cloth side. print on thick Old Mill Stucco paper. and the illustrator is one of my favorite. no notes though .

>3 Smiler69:

Yep - I bought it when it was still with the 20% off for being new. That's why I say it is stunning :)

I completely agree with Annie. It is indeed stunning. The Rubaiyat is possibly the title which FS has produced in the most number of separate editions, with five editions, 21 impressions, and three separate sets of illustrations since it was first published in 1955:

1955 - First Edition, illustrated using reproductions of four Persian miniatures.
1970 - Second Edition, illustrated by Virgil Burnett.
1982 - Third Edition, as per the 1970 edition, but reset throughout.
2009 - Fourth Edition, Limited Edition, illustrated by Niroot Puttapipat
2012 - Fifth Edition, as per 2009 Limited Edition, but not limited and with different binding.

Unfortunately I don't have the Limited Edition, but I do have the other four. Here is a picture which may be of interest (clockwise from top left we have the 2012, 1970, 1982 and 1955 editions). As you can see there is a huge difference in sizes, particularly between the tall 2012 edition and the 1955 miniature.



Given the different sets of illustrations and bindings, I will post a few pictures in chronological order in the following posts which may be of interest.

1955 - First edition

This copy is a lovely miniature, with stunning reproductions of four Persian miniatures found by Desmond Flower in a manuscript of the poem in the collection of Professor S. Najib Ash af Nadvi in Patna. The red brocade binding was specially commissioned for this edition. The book comes in a gold clamshell box with a red paper label.

This edition went through four impressions (1955, 1959, 1960 and 1962). My copy is a first impression from 1955.

1970 - Second Edition

This edition also comes in a gold clamshell box, but is very different in format to the 1955 edition. In addition to having different illustrations ( drawings by Virgil Burnett), it is larger with a different red-brown cloth binding with a design in silver and gold by Madeline Dinkel.

This edition went through five impressions (1970, 1971, 1973, 1975 slip cased, 1978 slip cased). My copy is a second impression from 1971.

1982 - Third Edition

To quote Folio 60, "the publication history of this popular title grew very complex, with a number of different impressions, one of which was really a new edition. Until the type was completely reset in 1982 it is clear from surviving correspondence that the type was kept standing by Mackay, rather than being recast for each new printing; by the time the fifth impression came to be printed the type was very worn, and the verse numbers had to be reset",

This Third Edition from 1982 is the result of that need to reset the type. It is therefore to all intents and purposes simply the Sixth Impression of the 1970 edition, but it was issued instead in a gold slip case rather than a clamshell box (as indeed were the fourth and fifth impressions of the second edition), and is considered by Folio 60 to be a separate edition (with its own 1982 bibliography entry and number), even though the title page is exactly the same as the 1970 edition (i.e. still showing 1970 as the year of publication).

Given that the illustrations are the same as the 1970 edition, I have just provided a photo below to compare the bindings of the 1970 and 1982 editions (the darker binding on the left is from the 1970 edition), as well as a photo showing the book in its slip case. This is a natural difference, not a result of any fading.

This "edition" ran through from the sixth impression in 1982 through a total of ten impressions until the fifteenth impression in 2000 (aka third edition, tenth impression). The eighth impression (third edition, third impression) in 1990 saw the title-lettering reset. My copy is an original "sixth impression" from 1982.

2012 - Fifth Edition

And last but by no means least we have the lovely new edition issued last year for those of us who missed, or couldn't afford, the 2009 Limited Edition. I will allow FS to give its own description:

"This fine edition reproduces all of Niroot Puttapipat’s original illustrations from the 2009 Folio Society Limited Edition: a frontispiece, 15 full-page illustrations and 5 small line drawings in total. The text is set in 16-point Van Dyck, with four quatrains to a page, and with an illustration opposite each page. The verse pages are unpaginated.

The book is printed on Old Mill Stucco Paper, and quarter-bound in Nigerian goatskin with crushed silk sides, with metallic gold endpapers. The lettering on the spine was hand-drawn for this edition by Ged Palmer."

I have shown some pictures below, but I can't better the pictures FS has for this volume in its own website.

>4 kafkachen: There are notes. In fact whereas the 1955 and 1970 (1982) editions have just a single page of notes, the 2012 edition includes Fitzgerald's more detailed original notes - four full pages of them (and bear in mind the poem itself only covers just over 19 pages of text). It also includes a comprehensive introduction by A.S. Byatt (8 pages), as well as Fitzgerald's original introduction (also 8 pages).

I have the 1970 edition and it is indeed lovely.

>11 Conte_Mosca:.

Yep, there are some notes at the end ,but he only comment on 20 stanza, out of a total of 75 . which is not enough for me.

>13 kafkachen: I can definitely recommend the OUP edition, edited by Daniel Karlin with very extensive explanatory notes. It is inexpensive, and an excellent supplement to the FS editions which can then be read without distraction! :-)

>14 Conte_Mosca:

Thanks a lot , I had resorted to online annotation and most of them are terse as well.

Oh how utterly lovely and beautiful these pictures are! Thank you so much, Conte Mosca, for sharing from your (clearly incomparable) FS collection and knowledge. I absolutely adore the red brocade on the 1955 edition. I wish I could touch it...

Thanks for a most pleasurable reading and watching experience. I only have the most recent edition and I love it dearly.

Thanks Conte Mosca for posting all that information and those photos of the different editions/impressions (I still think of there having been three 'standard' editions!). Coincidentally, after months and months of deliberation, I ordered the 1955 edition five days ago on abebooks and am eagerly awaiting its arrival, frustrated by a bank holiday weekend! I think the crushed silk boards and quarter leather spine of the current edition are magnificent, though I was never sold enough on Puttapipat's illustrations (as lavish as they clearly are) to forego three Aubrey-Maturin volumes for it! I love the simplicity of the miniature, its patterned brocade and quaint 'Flower' illustrations, and now your photos have just whetted my impatience!

www.flickr.com/photos/65741746@N08/8711183557/in/photostream

www.flickr.com/photos/65741746@N08/8712312336/in/photostream/

Images of the 1970 edition (1991 reprint) and the Limited Edition

Michael (aka Conte_Mosca) I want to thank you for so generously sharing all that info and beautiful photos of the various editions of the Rubaiyat. When I posted my original query, I never expected to get such a wonderful eyeful! For one thing, since I'm already sold on the 2012 edition, you have only made me desire it more ardently, but you've managed to sell me on the initial 1955 edition, which I will try to get my hands on asap. I've also gotten the OUP edition as per your suggestion, and ordered it from BookDepository, where it can be had for a song.

While I'm very happy with the Virgil Burnett edition I got, I do regret not having taken the time to better inform myself about which edition/printing of it to get, because in the 1999 version I purchased (at a very good price, mind you), it's obvious the type was quite worn out. But no matter, it's my first Fitzgerald edition and I will cherish it all the same.

I did obtain the Penguin edition a few years ago, translated by Peter Avery and John Heath-Stubbs, who took a radically different approach than Fitzgerald did, completely eschewing the conventions of English verse, as is explained in the notes on the translation. While it doesn't compare to the FS editions as an object, it is still illustrated throughout with Persian miniatures, which is very nice considering I got a new copy of it for practically nothing. There are also a total of 235 stanzas, making for a completely different experience. I only had a brief look at it when I got it, but it will be very interesting to delve into it as a separate work in it's own right, as well as compare it to the Victorian version which has made this work as famous as it is.

>14 Conte_Mosca:,19 Thanks for the advice regarding the OUP edition with its extensive annotation, as a bonus the cover looks gorgeous with its peacock fantail! I see that edition is available in both paperback and hardback. Any comments about the hardback binding if you have it? The spine of the blue-turquoise quarter binding looks quite beautiful.

>20 cronshaw: I am afraid mine is only the humble paperback so I can't comment on the hardback version. It certainly sounds like an attractive alternative.

>19 Smiler69: You are very welcome. The Avery / Heath-Stubbs translation was a nice find. It is quite an important work, and Daniel Karlin references it quite liberally in his OUP edition, especially Avery's introduction, to which Karlin expresses a particular debt. It is a real shame that it is currently out of print (I think), as it deserves more attention and is of real interest to those interested in Omar Khayyam beyond Fitzgerald's interpretation.

Oh and as an added piece of useless and pedantic trivia, has anyone spotted the error in the 1970/1982 editions (and all of their fifteen impressions)? It is incorrectly titled! It should be "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam". There is no "The" in the title. A small thing I know, but the sort of thing that drives academics mad. The correct title is used in the 1955, 2009 and 2012 editions.

Just as well I am not an academic myself. I use the incorrect title all the time, calling it "The Rubaiyat", as in my post at >6 Conte_Mosca: above. Life's too short to worry about the little things :-)

>21 Conte_Mosca: I got my copy of the Avery / Heath-Stubbs from BookCloseouts.com (.ca, actually). I've found they're sometimes a great source for cheap OOP editions.

>22 Conte_Mosca: I'm not sure what led me to title this thread without the "The" because I'm constantly wanting to add that article usually. I think that time I copied it from the FS site, which is why I happened to name it correctly. But if you hand't mentioned it here, I would still not have picked up on that detail.

Mind you, now I think of it, there could be quite a debate on whether FitzGerald's translation can still be considered the definitive translation and therefore eschew the article, given the way everything is now given a politically correct slant and that viewed from that vantage point, he did not in actuality render the text as closely as it might have been, and gave it a decidedly Victorian tone. Seems to me that if we were to be politically correct about it, we'd call it "FitzGerald's Rubaiyat". But then I suppose that could be said of every translation there ever was of any work. Mind you, I'm not erudite enough, or concerned about political correctness enough to actually participate in such a debate. :-)

>23 Smiler69: I think you are right to throw open the question as to whether FitzGerald's version is the definitive "translation". I think he can probably lay claim to the pre-eminent "interpretation", but translation? For a start FitzGerald manufactured the poem from a sequence of previously disconnected ruba'i. Each original ruba'i was a short whole poem in a single quatrain. As Karlin puts it, what FitzGerald created was"akin to telling a story in limericks". In the Persian text, the ruba'iyat are independent, epigrammatic poems, grouped according to tradition by end-rhyme - in other words not forming a narrative or argumentative sequence. FitzGerald saw how some of these separate poems might be combined in such a sequence. FitzGerald's poem, not Omar's, begins at dawn and ends at nightfall, with the speaker meditating on life in the course of this symbolic day.

And then of course there is the consideration that almost certainly some, if not all, of the ruba'iyat were not originally written by Omar Khayyam either. Omar was not primarily a poet, and if he composed verse at all it is generally agreed that only the plainer, clearer, and more forceful ruba'iyat are likely to be Omar's. Compilers of anthologies in successive centuries and in different countries attributed more and more ruba'iyat to Omar with less and less authority.

So I completely agree that what we typically know today as "Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám" is very much "FitzGerald's Rubáiyát", and indeed is just the title that FitzGerald gave to his interpretation. It is not known informally as "The Rubáiyát of FitzOmar" for nothing!

There are of course many other translations which refer back to the original Persian text, with Avery's as the most notable attempt at a more literal English version of the originals. I have read many quatrains by other translators, and despite knowing they are a more accurate rendition of the original Persian ruba'iyat it is to FitzGerald I always return.

Interestingly, FitzGerald himself would probably be amazed at the disproportion between the length (and importance) of his text and the critical treatment and scholarly attention it has received over the years. He never considered it of great literary or commercial value, and when his publisher suggested reprinting the first and second editions in a single volume, FitzGerald replied that this 'would be making too much of the thing: and you and I might both be laughed at for treating my Omar as if it were some precious fragment of Antiquity'.

Karlin's edition is my source for much of the above, so despite the fact that (as Karlin himself says)"...it is not hard to imagine the surprise (and, to be honest, hostility) with which he would have greeted this, or any, scholarly treatment of his work", I think you will very much enjoy this edition when it arrives. And if you really get the bug (and really want FitzGerald to turn in his grave), you could move on to Christopher Decker's even more scholarly "Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam: A Critical Edition" published by the University Press of Virginia (1997). This probably is the definitive critical edition of FitzGerald's Rubáiyát, but may be hard going for some, with its detailed comparative analysis of FitzGerald's four editions, and indeed his Latin translation of the work ("why oh why?" one might ask!), so I would not recommend it as a starting point. I own it, but freely confess that I have not managed to read it cover to cover...

As I just posted on the "I have just ordered / received" thread, today I received the Oxford World Classics edition of Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, which Conte_Mosca had recommended. Can't wait to plunge into it, I leafed through it a bit and it seems fascinating!

I can see this is an older thread. I wanted to share my purchase of today (though not an FS edition) of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam , with illustrations by Willy Pogany, published by David McKay , Philadelphia in 1942, boxed , mint with glassine paper dw . Stunning illustrations . I don't think its a particularly rare edition but lovely to handle and hold and as an attractively produced book it's worth owning .

Easton Press also published a beautiful Rubaiyat with illustrations by Arthur Szyk in its Famous Editions series. It is no longer available from the publisher, but you can pick up nice copies for under $50 on the secondary market.

I have the Folio Limited Edition. It's one of the few books I would never sell, along with my large quarto Gibbon (2nd edition due to Volume 1 being virtually unattainable in first ed.) and numbered Book of the New Sun (centipede press).

I would say that I've rarely seen a work printed in so many illustrated and/or limited editions, so you have a fantastic variety to choose from. The Dulac Rubaiyat is one of my golden age favorites. And, of course, the poem itself...I had a calligrapher design a tattoo for it. The guy wanted to source back to the Persian original, but the Fitzgerald translation will always be the real Rubaiyat to me...

>6 Conte_Mosca: 2018 - Sixth Edition, illustrated by William Morris (undated)

I recently acquired a pristine copy of this edition for GBP 8.00 and found it almost identical in size to the 1955 First Edition.

A detailed review of the 2018 edition has already been posted here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/331986