DULAC, Edmund (illus.); FITZGERALD, Edward (trans.).

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Signed limited edition, number 360 of 750 copies signed by the illustrator. Dulac's Rubaiyat confirmed his position as "a direct challenger in the illustrated gift book market to the work of Arthur Rackham" (ODNB).Of the 20 plates in the book, "the first, illustrating the opening quatrain on daybreak as the sun 'strikes the Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light', is one of Dulac's finest works and a perfect preface to the text... Dulac saw Omar's humanity and resignation, and in these illustrations, as perhaps nowhere else, he revealed the full depth of insight into the character he was portraying" (White, p. 42). FitzGerald's translation from the original Persian was published in 1859 and slowly gained recognition as a masterpiece of English literature. By the early 1900s, many of FitzGerald's phrases had entered the common stock of English quotations and allusions; a growing 'cult of the Rubáiyát' found expression in "the Omar Khayyám Clubs of England and America" (Yohannan, p. 202).

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