Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, The First and Fourth Renderings in English Verse by Edward FitzGerald, Willy Pogany Illustrated Edition

Published by George G. Harrap, circa. 1930's, hardcover, large format, illustrated, some wear to dust jacket otherwise condition: very good.

Omar Khayyám (1048 -  1131) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and poet. [Rendered into English Verse by Edward FitzGerald (31 March 1809 - 14 June 1883)]. Illustrated by Willy Pogany (1882 - 1955) prolific Hungarian illustrator of children's and other books.

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his 1859 translation from Persian to English of a selection of quatrains (rubāiyāt) attributed to Omar Khayyam (10481131), dubbed "the Astronomer-Poet of Persia".

Although commercially unsuccessful at first, FitzGerald's work was popularised from 1861 onward by Whitley Stokes, and the work came to be greatly admired by the Pre-Raphaelites in England. FitzGerald had a third edition printed in 1872, which increased interest in the work in the United States. By the 1880s, the book was extremely popular throughout the English-speaking world, to the extent that numerous "Omar Khayyam clubs" were formed and there was a "fin de siècle cult of the Rubaiyat".

FitzGerald's work has been published in several hundred editions and has inspired similar translation efforts in English, Hindi and in many other languages.