VEDDER, Elihu (illus.); FITZGERALD, Edward (trans.).

£9,500 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. First Vedder edition, the first fully illustrated edition of the Rubáiyát, "quite unlike any other book issued from an American publishing house. It opened an era in the history of American art publishing" (quoted in Soria, p. 188). This copy is custom-bound by the Roycrofters in a striking pigskin binding and presented in a monumental presentation box. Elihu Vedder (1836-1923), though American-born, spent much of his adult life in Europe. When commissioned by Houghton Mifflin to illustrate the Rubáiyát, he entered into the project single-mindedly and ambitiously, complaining to his publishers "how is it in God's name that such fine things can be done in England and France and not in America?" (quoted in Soria, p. 184). In the event, the 1884 edition was a masterpiece. It made Vedder's name internationally, and his illustrations have subsequently been recognized as "some of the earliest examples of Art Nouveau in America" (Grove Art Online).In the early years of the 20th century, this volume passed through the hands of the Roycroft community, who put their bookbinding, metal-, and wood-working skills to reimagining this copy on behalf of Helen Ruth Morrow (1889-1964). The Roycrofters, in East Aurora, New York, were established by Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) as a response to the work of William Morris, which Hubbard had admired when visiting the Kelmscott Press. It inaugurated the American arm of the arts and crafts movement and attracted the patronage

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