RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM, illus. by Robert Stewart Sherriffs 1954

Beautiful illustrations!

The Rubaiyat

By Omar Khayyam

Written 1120 A.C.E.

I

Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight

The Stars before him from the Field of Night,

Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes

The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light.

II

Before the phantom of False morning died,

Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried,

"When all the Temple is prepared within,

Why nods the drowsy Worshipper outside?"

III

And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before

The Tavern shouted--"Open then the Door!

You know how little while we have to stay,

And, once depa

rted, may return no more."

Scottish artist Robert Stewart Sherriffs (13 February 1906 26 December 1960) was perhaps best known in his day for the boldly stylized caricatures of contemporary film and theatre stars that he drew for various British periodicals including The Sketch, the BBCs Radio Times, and Punch; however, beginning in 1930 with his elaborate, decadent line drawings for an edition of Christopher Marlowes The Life and Death of Tamurlaine the Great, Sherriffs also produced a substantial and here in the twenty-first century, for the most part, unjustly forgotten body of work in the field of book illustration. More than a decade and a half into that second career, in the late 1940s, Sherriffs was commissioned to create twelve illustrations for the Khorasan Edition of Edward FitzGeralds celebrated English-verse translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. I dont own a first edition of the Khorasan Rubaiyat, which was published in 1947, but in the 1967 reprint edition of the book, the publisher, Collins, informs readers that Sherriffs illustrations are printed in six colours by the offset process on Mellotex offset cartridge paper, and although one might not understand the jargon, one cant argue with the result, which is a lovely advertisement for both the illustrators and the printers art.

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