The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
No. 69 of 920 copies printed by writer and philosopher Elbert Hubbard at the Roycroft Shop in Aurora, New York. Founded by Hubbard in 1895 as a fine-art printing press, the Roycroft community became a leading force in the American Arts and Crafts movement. It grew to encompass more than 500 craftspeople producing leather goods, handcrafted furniture, copperworks and other artisanal products.
Printed during the early years of Hubbard’s legacy, this copy of the translated quatrains of the Persian poet Omar Khayyam is letterpress-printed with illuminated decorations, a decorative embossed cover, suede/calf binding, and green satin pastedown endpapers.
The text, translated from Persian into English by Edward FitzGerald in 1859, gained widespread popularity in the 1880s due to its philosophical and poetic reflections on existence, fate and the search for meaning in a transient life. Item #2138.
Condition: Very Good, in original limp reverse calf binding; light toning, curling and bending to yapped cover edges; edgewear and closed tears/chips to top of back cover and at spine top; toning to edges of interior pages.
Price: $125.00