BURTON, Richard F.

£5,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The Kasîdah (Couplets) of Hajî Abdû El-Yezdî. First edition, first issue, with the title page undated and not naming Bernard Quaritch as the publisher. Penzer suggests that the entire first edition probably consisted of no more than 200 copies, the majority of which were intended for private distribution among Burton's friends, and that the first issue "was very small indeed". The Kasîdah is presented as a translation of an original work by a certain Persian poet named Haji Abdu el-Yazdi, but it is really of Burton's own composition. "Unlike most of Burton's compositions, which were hastily written, this is a polished work that contains many fascinating autobiographical insights. Unfortunately, it was perceived as an echo of Edward Fitzgerald's Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam and only half of its print run... was sold, although after Burton's death it became quite popular, going through many editions and long remaining in print" (ODNB). "F.B." was a pseudonym commonly used by Burton, standing for Frank Baker, a combination of his middle name and his mother's maiden name.A common form in classical Arabic and Persian verse, a qasida is a monorhyme, polythematic ode, often used for conveying praise of kings and other temporal rulers but sometimes employed in theological writing, as in works such as al-Busiri's Qasidat al-burda ("The Ode of the Prophet's Mantel"). Burton translates the term qasida somewhat misleadingly as 'distichs' (p. 19), which reflects his use of rhyming couplets th

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