RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM - Illustrated by Robert Stewart Sherriffs (1969 HARDCOVER)

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

1969 Illustrated HARDCOVER

Translated by Edward Fitzgerald

Illustrated by Robert Stewart Sherriffs

Published by Collins

LOVELY CONDITION

Written 1120 A.C.E.

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.