The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, rendered into English verse by Edward Fitzgerald, First and Last Version

New York: Illustrated Editions Company, 1938. Hardcover. Very Good. 4to 11" - 13" tall. Hamzah Abd-Ullah Kar. A particularly lovely copy of the definitive translation, and illustrated beautifully by Hamzah Abd-Ullah Kar with tipped-in, full color plates mounted to heavy card stock, being handsomely bound in a black leatherette cover, and with illustration to front cover, gilt lettering over spine and over burgundy label at spine. An odd, quite personal penciled inscription at half-title, which I have purposely left in. A justifiable classic in poetry and Orientalist Studies. It follows from Edward Fitzgerald's translation of these 11th-century Persian poems in 1859, which brought them to the attention of giant poets such as Robert Browning, Robert Lowell, Alfred Tennyson and others. Khayyam's Rubaiyat exemplifies the Arabic verse form composed in quatrains and with first, second and fourth lines rhyming. Robert Lowell is quoted as saying "These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred, Each softly lucent as a rounded moon; The diver Omar plucked them from their bed, FitzGerald strung them on an English thread." Unpaginated.Member, I.O.B.A., C.B.A., and adherent to the highest ethical standards. Additional postage may be required for oversize or especially heavy volumes, and for sets.