Description

8vo (206 x 162 mm). XVIII, 30 pp. Original printed paper wrappers. Housed in a full black morocco case with cloth chemise. Second edition of FitzGerald's translation, substantially expanded and revised. Omar Khayyám was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and poet, famous in his own country and time chiefly for his scientific achievements. He is known to English-speaking readers mostly due to FitzGerald's translations, which were quite free and liberal in their paraphrasing and would prove to be the "most popular verse translation into English ever made" (Decker, p. xiv). - Five hundred copies of the second edition were printed, with Quaritch selling each at a price of 1s. 6d.; when a copy re-appeared in their catalogue in 1929, it had already reached a price of £52 10s. (Potter, p. 12). Fitzgerald substantially revised the text of the Rubáiyát four times, with none of these five versions seen as truly definitive. The first edition had 75 quatrains, while the present second edition, which has 110 quatrains, is the longest of the five. - Some light foxing throughout. Some soiling and creasing to wrappers; contemporary ownership inscription, dated 1869, to upper cover. - Potter 129.