Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

“A miracle happens: from the fortuitous conjunction of a Persian astronomer who condescended to write poetry and an eccentric Englishman who peruses Oriental and Hispanic books, perhaps without understanding them completely, emerges an extraordinary poet who resembles neither of them… All collaboration is mysterious…”

Jorge Luis Borges

The Petrarch Press is pleased to announce our latest fine-press book: Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Our text, that of the 1859 First Edition, is supplemented with six additional quatrains FitzGerald added to his later editions.

And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scatter’d on the Grass,
And in thy joyous Errand reach the Spot
Where I made one – turn down an empty Glass! 

The presswork on our Albion handpress, printing in two colors on both handmade paper and parchment, is complete. The handset Kennerley Old Style type, including accents and ornaments, was cast specially for this publication in our own type foundry.

Facing the gold-ornamented title page is a unique frontispiece portrait of Edward FitzGerald. This image – after the original watercolor in the National Portrait Gallery in London – was reproduced for us in Collotype by Benrido Atelier in Kyoto, Japan.

Endsheets for the parchment copies are hand-marbled paper, while handmade-paper copies have a printed abstract peacock feather pattern. The pages are bound in quarter-vellum and linen, with handmade-paper copies in a slipcase and parchment copies in their own clamshell box.

As with our previous fine-press books, our Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is issued in a limited edition: 80 copies printed on handmade paper, and 15 copies printed on sheepskin parchment.

The Petrarch Press
PO Box 488
9690 Stackhouse Lane
Oregon House, CA 95962
U.S.A.
+1 (530) 692-9531

Related:
Finding the Text of the Rubáiyát