Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Presented by Willy Pogany

New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1923. Undated; circa 1923. Large 6 1/2" x 9" design. A Willy Pogany illustrated gift edition of the quatrains of Omar the tentmaker. Coated pebbled cloth green cloth boards, ornately designed cover and spine, light shelf wear, bump, spine toning. Titles in ancient Persian style surrounded by borders and flourishing designs. Adjacent title page in Pogany's artistic motif: "These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred, Each softly lucent as a rounded moon; The diver Omar plucked them from their bed, FitzGerald strung them on an English thread. Lowell". Rough-cut deckled leaves, near fine. Each page decorated w/the designs and decoration of Willy Pogany. Sixteen subtly colored plates by Pogany tipped-in throughout. Gilded top edge. Bind fine; hinges intact. Fitzgerald's rendition has more admirers today than ever before and stands as a monument to the translator's art. Sharp very good example of this rare illustrated edtion from Thomas Y. Crowell of New York. Apprx. 100 pages. Insured post. In eleventh century Persia, there lived a mathematician named Ghiyathuddin Abulfath Omar bin Ibrahim al-Khayyami - or, Omar Khayyam, son of Abraham, the tent-maker. Omar wrote poetry, and while his rhymes received scant attention in their day, they were discovered and translated into beautiful English more than seven centuries later by a gentleman and scholar named Edward FitzGerald. It was a meeting of minds, a great collaboration of the past and the present, and FitzGerald's rendition of those passionate verses has become one of the most loved poem cycles in the English language. With their concern for the here and now, as opposed to the hereafter, Omar Khayyam's quatrains are as romantic today as they were hundreds of years ago. They are a tribute to the power of one moment's pleasure over a lifetime of sorrow, of desire over the vicissitudes of time. Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, presented here with Edward FitzGerald's original preface, is truly a classic, and it will stand forever as one of our finest monuments to love. Omar Khayyam (May 18, 1048 - December 4, 1131) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and poet. He was born in Nishabur, in northeastern Persia, and spent most of his life near the court of the Karakhanid and Seljuq rulers in the period which witnessed the First Crusade. As a mathematician, he is most noted for the classification and solution of cubic equations, where he provided geometric solutions. As an astronomer, he designed the Jalali calendar, a solar calendar with a precise thirty-three year cycle. There is a tradition of attributing poetry to Omar Khayyam, written in the form of quatrains. This poetry became widely known to the English-reading world in a translation by Edward FitzGerald (Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 1859), which enjoyed great success in the Orientalism of the fin de siècle. . First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Illus. by Pogany, Willy. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" Tall. Book.