Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by KHAYYAM, Omar (1048-1131), [FITZGERALD, Edward, translator], [BULL, René, illustrator]

London: Hodder and Stoughton, no date [1913]. [Metaphysical Poetry] FIRST BULL ILLUSTRATED EDITION. Quarto, unpaginated. With 29 very fine tipped-in colour plates, including a frontispiece, by Rene Bull. Also blue border decorations and vignette illustrations to every page. Recently bound in brown half morocco, with raised bands, gilt titles and decoration to spine, and matching cloth over boards. Top edge gilt; others lightly trimmed. Vestiges of an old ownership to first blank, washed. Light spotting throughout; heavier spotting to final two leaves. A tear to one tissue guard. A clean copy in an attractive new leather binding. Very good. 'Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend, / Before we too into Dust descend'. Polymath poet, philosopher, and scientist, Khayyam was one of the greatest minds of the Islamic Golden Age, whose enduring presence in the Anglophone world was cemented by the translations of FitzGerald, and amplified by the many illustrated interpretations of the golden age of the early twentieth century.