Author: Omar Khayyám. Rendered into English verse by Edward FitzGerald.
Title: Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám and the Salámán and Absál of Jámí.
Publisher: New York, Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1902.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 7.5 × 5 inches.
Pages: 288 pages.
Binding: Attractive and very good publisher’s green cloth binding elaborately decorated in gilt on the front cover and spine with stylized floral and vine motifs in an Art Nouveau style (hinges fine, overall slightly worn and scuffed - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover. Upper edge gilt.
Content: Very good content (bright, tight and clean, rare light foxing and toning - as shown). Two early ownership inscriptions appear on the front endpaper, one dated February 14, 1902. The original red silk ribbon page marker is still present but detached from the spine - as shown. 
Illustrations: Illustrated with four beautiful colour plates by Gilbert James, protected by tissue guards, presenting evocative scenes inspired by the romantic and philosophical atmosphere of the Persian poetry. Complete.

Estimate: (USD 200–250).

The book: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám achieved international fame through Edward FitzGerald’s celebrated English rendering first published in 1859. This elegant edition combines the famous quatrains with the Persian romantic narrative Salámán and Absál by the fifteenth-century poet Jámí and includes additional scholarly material on the textual variations of the poem. The decorative binding and illustrated plates reflect the enduring Western fascination with Persian poetry and Orientalist themes during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when richly designed gift editions of the Rubáiyát became especially popular.

The author: Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and poet whose reflective quatrains explore themes of fate, mortality, and the fleeting pleasures of life. Though little known in the West during his lifetime, his poetry gained worldwide recognition after Edward FitzGerald’s influential English translation introduced Victorian readers to the contemplative and often hedonistic spirit of the original verses.

The illustrator: Gilbert James (1887–1926) was a British illustrator associated with the decorative gift book tradition of the early twentieth century. His work, often influenced by Art Nouveau aesthetics and Orientalist imagery, brought a refined visual interpretation to literary classics, and his illustrations for the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám capture the poetic atmosphere and exotic settings suggested by FitzGerald’s famous translation.