Rubáiyát
London: David Nutt / Chiswick Press, 1889. 12mo, 6 3/4 x 4 1/8 in (170 x 105 mm) pp. lxii + clviii. One of 550 copies on small paper (60 copies were printed on large paper, 8 x 5 in.), printed throughout in small caps. Contemporary brown morocco by Petrus Ruban [gilt stamp on doublure], triple fillets on boards, 5 raised bands with gilt titling and decorations in compartments, floral scrolls and fillets in gilt on turn-ins, marbled endpapers, a.e.g. Very slight wear to front hinge, few faint spots, interior clean and bright, binding tight and square.
[Potter, 348].
A beautifully printed and elegantly-bound first edition of the PROSE TRANSLATION by Justin Huntley McCarthy (1859 – 1936). An Irish author and nationalist politician, he was a member of Parliament, and who wrote various novels, plays, poetical pieces and short histories, learning the Persian language with the sole purpose of being able to translate this text. David Nutt published his prose translations of 466 Khayyám quatrains, with a reprint in 1898 and a further reissue by Thomas B. Mosher in 1896 in his Bibelot series.
The binding is by Petrus Ruban (1851-1929), an important art nouveau binder
The poetry in quatrains (rubāʿiyāt) by OMAR KHAYYÁM (1048 – 1131) —the Persian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and poet— became wildly popular during the Orientalist craze of fin-de-siècle Europe. Several verse and prose translations in English, French, German, and Russian were published, starting in 1859 with the verse translation of Edward FitzGerald in 1859: "Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, the Astronomer-Poet of Persia."
Condition: Near fine.
Item number: 414
Price: $600.00
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