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RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM, THE ASTRONOMER-POET OF PERSIA.
(London: Bernard Quaritch, 1859). 204 x 152 mm. (8 x 6"). xiii, [1], 21 pp. FIRST EDITION, ONE OF ONLY 250 COPIES PRINTED, with the misprint "Lightning" on p. 4.
FINE LATE 19TH CENTURY DARK BROWN CRUSHED MOROCCO, GILT, BY ZAEHNSDORF (with their oval stamp on rear pastedown), covers with French fillet border and arabesque centerpiece, smooth spine in one long and two short compartments framed by double fillets, middle (short) compartment with gilt lettering, turn-ins with intricate gilt tooling, mahogany brown silk pastedowns and endleaves, all edges gilt. In matching brown morocco slipcase. Verso of front free endleaf with engraved ex-libris of Roderick Terry. Potter 1; Grolier "English" 97. ◆Spine gently sunned, title page with neat repair to small chip at fore edge, leaves a shade less than bright (as usual), occasional trivial smudges or tiny rust spots, but A FINE COPY, generally clean and fresh internally, IN A SPARKLING BINDING.
This is a handsomely bound copy, with distinguished provenance, of the first printing of a work generally recognized as the most important poem of the Victorian era. Son of a wealthy Irish landowner, FitzGerald had enough money to pursue a rather desultory literary career as a "genteel gipsy" (in Terhune's words) before beginning to study languages in middle age. He started his translation of the quatrains ("rubáiyát" in Persian) attributed to "Umar Khayyam" in 1856; according to DNB, about half of FitzGerald's final work paraphrases (rather than directly translates) portions of the 11th century poem, while the rest is original verse inspired by Omar. "The result is generally seen as being in some ways an original English poem, one that is much better known than Omar's poem is in Persian." (DNB) It certainly earned FitzGerald "a prominent place among the immortals of English literature" in Jewett's opinion. In 1858, FitzGerald submitted 25 of the "less wicked" verses to "Fraser's Magazine" only to be rejected. He had 250 copies published, anonymously, at his own expense, but had no luck selling them. Admitting defeat, he gave 200 copies to Quaritch; these sold so poorly that they were relegated to the penny bin, where Potter says they were discovered--and soon celebrated--by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Algernon Swinburne. Those copies that remained unsold when Quaritch moved to Piccadilly in 1860 were either lost or destroyed, but by 1861, Rossetti and his Pre-Raphaelite brethren, along with Celtic scholar Whitley Stokes, were evangelizing for the work, embracing the lush, lyrical verse that would move English poetry away from Victorian orthodoxy and convention. According to Day, by the end of the 19th century, "a copy of the 'Rubáiyát' upon an Oxford table was a symbol of sophistication. Today . . . it remains the most popular single poem of the Victorian era." Binder Joseph Zaehnsdorf (1816-86) was born in Pest, Hungary, served his apprenticeship in Stuttgart, worked at a number of European locations as a journeyman, and then settled in London, where he was hired first by Westley and then by Mackenzie before opening his own workshop in 1842. His son and namesake took over the business at 33, when the senior Joseph died, and the firm flourished under the son's leadership, becoming a leading West End bindery. The fine binding and condition here are typical of works from the library of Roderick Terry (1849-1933), who collected beautiful and substantial items chosen with considered discrimination. He accumulated items in various fields, but his library was especially strong in English literature: he owned the four folios, and he had strong holdings in Byron, Lamb, Spenser, and Milton. He also collected Americana, assembling a complete set of autographs of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, in addition to many literary items. Dickinson characterizes him as "a connoisseur in the grand old tradition of the 19th century. His library reflected his eclectic tastes and [his] cultivated good judgment." (ST17640-377)
Price: $55,000.00