(Description)

Author: Omar Khayyam. Translated By Edward Fitzgerald. Illustrated By Edmund Dulac.
Title: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Illustrated By Edmund Dulac.
Publisher: London, Hodder & Stoughton, no date (circa 1909).  This is the first Hodder and Stoughton edition, printed from the second Fitzgerald's edition "by kind permission of Messrs. MacMillan and Co. Ltd. "
Language: Text in English.
Size: 11 " X 9 ".
Pages: Unpaginated.110 quatrains, printed on the recto of each leaf. Text reprinted from Fitzgerald's second edition.
Binding: Very beautiful and very good quarter red calf leather binding, with original red cloth front cover elaborately decorated in gilt (hinges fine, overall slightly worn and scuffed - as shown, corners slightly bumped - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover.
Content: Very good content (bright, tight and clean, gift note of a previous owner on the first endpaper - as shown, some light foxing - as shown).
Illustrations: Complete with the wonderful 20 Edmund Dulac color plates tipped in and protected by tissue guards.

The book: Rare and beautiful edition of Dulac's illustration for the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám --Edward FitzGerald 's translation of a selection of poems, originally written in Persian and numbering about a thousand, attributed to Omar Khayyám (1048–1131), a Persian poet, mathematician and astronomer. A ruba'i is a two-line stanza with two parts (or hemistichs) per line, hence the word rubayot (derived from the Arabic language root for "four"), meaning "quatrains".

The illustrator: Edmund Dulac (born Edmond Dulac; October 22, 1882 – May 25, 1953) was a French-born, British naturalised magazine illustrator, book illustrator and stamp designer. Born in Toulouse he studied law but later turned to the study of art the École des Beaux-Arts. He moved to London early in the 20th century and in 1905 received his first commission to illustrate the novels of the Brontë Sisters. During World War I, Dulac produced relief books and when after the war the deluxe children's book market shrank he turned to magazine illustrations among other ventures. He designed banknotes during World War II and postage stamps, most notably those that heralded the beginning of Queen Elizabeth II's reign.