Omar Khayyam
Privately printed by Galloway and Porter, 1914.
First edition. 4to. One of 250 privately printed copies. Original publisher's black cloth, elaborately lettered and decorated gilt. Illustrated title page; fifteen fully calligraphed and illustrated plates of seventy-five quatrains, each page original composition; fifteen plates under captioned tissue guards at the end. A very good copy indeed. Bookplate to front pastedown with some offsetting to the front endpaper.
One of the rarest and most original of the early-twentieth century Rubaiyats, privately printed in an edition of just 250 copies.
Mera Sett, a Persian artist, sought to calligraph and illustrate an entirely original version of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Writing on publication in 1914, she thought only three of the many illustrated editions of the Rubaiyat "can be called worthy of Omar". These were Rene Bull's (1909); Abanindro Nath Tagore's (1910); and Edmund Dulac's (1913); though she confesses that "I would give a year of my life to see a volume illustrated by Kay Nielsen."
When she sought to find a publisher, she was told her version was "too shocking" and "one likely to hurt the susceptibility of the decent minded English people":
"They were ready to bring out my Omar if I changed a few pictures at their dictate and tastes, but I would not so much as a single line or dot. It seems the English (according to their publishers) would rather have the conventional fig-leaf than a cluster of roses. I stated the case to my generous father. With his usual kindness and generosity, he offered to stand the piper to the tune of a privately printed edition."
The resulting edition is one of the most captivating Rubaiyats of its period. When it was republished in India after the First World War, its publisher's quoted a supposed review of the privately printed edition by Rupert Brooke:
"If Mr Sett has not been universally acclaimed as the greatest draughtsman and decorator living, the fault lies with his own exclusive and publicity shunning nature. His Omar will have the pride of place in my library."
Stock ID: 43168
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