OMAR KHAYYAM

Cambridge: Galloway & Porter, 1914. FIRST EDITION. ONE OF 250 COPIES. 257 x 183 mm. (10 x 7 1/4"). 5 p.l. (dedication and foreword), plus plates. Printed on rectos only.Translated by Edward FitzGerald.
Publisher's black cloth with gilt lettering and illustrations, top edge gilt, others untrimmed. With 31 plates of black & white illustrations (including illustrated title) by Mera K. Sett. Front pastedown with bookplate of Max Klinghoffer, M. D. (1916-2003), decorated medic in World War II and afterward a media figure as part of his work to further disaster preparedness in America. Potter 104; Paas 1939. ◆Binding just a bit worn at extremities, free endpaper at front and back with overall toning (from binder's glue used on facing pastedown), one or two trivial thumb smudges, but an unusually clean and essentially fine copy of an insubstantially made book seldom found in attractive condition.

This highly original and provocatively illustrated edition of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is the work of a Cambridge-educated Indian artist called Mera Kavas Ben Sett (active ca. 1900-20), about whom very little is known. The work features large or full-page black & white illustrations heavy with symbolic imagery, nude female figures, satyrs, and whimsical patterns and designs, as well as Sett's adopted "signature," the peacock. The first 15 plates incorporate text from the Rubaiyat (in a very idiosyncratic curling and attenuated typeface) into the compositions themselves, while the next 15 are each accompanied by a printed tissue guard containing one quatrain each. A contemporary review of Sett's illustrations called them "weirdly unconventional" and "a welcome relief from the customary pictorial style of Omar illustrators," noting that "the artist has not been afraid to express the spirit of frank sensuousness that is inherent in the quatrains." Despite his artistic style being compared to that of Aubrey Beardsley (an association that Sett objected to, having only recently become acquainted with his work at the time of publication), our artist had a difficult time finding a publisher for his Rubaiyat, noting in his foreword that "Some of the English publishers found the work 'too shocking' and 'one likely to hurt the susceptibility of the decent minded English people.'" Sett's father eventually put up the money to have it published privately by the Cambridge bookstore Galloway & Porter. Consisting of just 250 copies, this work is uncommon on the market..