Home >> Carr >> Poetry >>

Omar Khayyam

Carr reported having published four editions of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1048-1131) in his History of the QTP (1987). Four impressions have been seen, but probably not the first, so there may be five. This is because Omar Khayyam was listed in some of the first books of poetry that Carr published including within the first edition of Wilfred Owen in which it was one of only eight other titles listed. This means that it was a very early title. The assumed second impression lists 19 titles, including Omar Khayyam, and is dated 1970. A later edition was given an ISBN in March 1976, probably the third impression.

(Last updated on 16/2/2021)

---

Rear and front covers (click to enlarge)

Inside rear cover (click to enlarge)

Notes: This is one of the first 10 titles that Carr published, probably around 1968. Thanks to Tim Dean and Mike Goodenough for the photographs of this impression. I was sold a copy by a dealer but it didn't arrive.

---

Rear and front covers (click to enlarge)

Inside rear cover (click to enlarge)

Content: Dates of birth and death of Edward Fitzgerald; two quotations from the Book of Job; five quotations about Omar Khayyam and Fitzgerald. Awake! for morning in the bowl of night... [The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam]

Notes: This impression is actually dated, 1970, underneath the colophon, the same as the first and only edition of Dryden and the first edition of the poems of D.G. Rossetti, which both have the same text inside the rear cover. This text lists Wilfrid (Wilfred) Owen as one of the 19 poets, but his name was dropped from later lists for some reason. It also lists Khayyam sixth, suggesting that there was an earlier edition than this.

---

Rear and front covers (click to enlarge)

Inside rear cover (click to enlarge)

Content: Dates of birth and death of Edward Fitzgerald; two quotations from the Book of Job; five quotations about Omar Khayyam and Fitzgerald; Awake! for morning in the bowl of night... [The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam]

Notes:

---

Rear and front covers (click to enlarge)

Inside rear cover (click to enlarge)

Content: Dates of birth and death of Edward Fitzgerald; two quotations from the Book of Job; five quotations about Omar Khayyam and Fitzgerald. Awake! for morning in the bowl of night... [The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam]

Notes: This impression does not state, in English at least, that this is the Rubaiyat.

---

Rear and front covers (click to enlarge)

Inside rear cover (click to enlarge)

Content: Awake! for morning in the bowl of night... (The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam). Quotations (see inside rear cover).

Notes: This is given number 92 in the series, so is one of the last 10 titles that Carr published, which is why it is taken to be the fifth impression. Carr also gave the number 92 to later impressions of the poems of William Blake and James Elroy Flecker and to the only impressions of poems by Robert Browning and Rudyard Kipling. It's odd that it was numbered 92 when it was listed in very early titles among the first 10 books of poetry that Carr published, and he retrospectively numbered impressions of poems by John Clare (1) and Andrew Marvell (3).

Carr redesigned the book and placed the text on each page over engravings of plants, animals and caligraphy in English. The five quotations were moved to inside the rear cover above half a sun face colophon and the number in the series. The dates of birth and death of Edward Fitzgerald were moved to the back cover. Inside the rear cover is a drawing of Bazaar-I-Vakil, Shiraz

---