Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

As A. S. Byatt observes in her new introduction to this edition of Edward FitzGerald's lyrical translation of Omar Khayyam's rubaiyat "forever changed the landscape of English poetry." The 250 copies of its 1859 first printing were left to molder in an obscure English bookshop , but two years later tha volume caught a young scholar's eye. Enchanted with his find, he distributed copies to his friends--among them Sir Richard Burton, Rossetti, Swinburne, Browning, and Tennyson, who later paid homage to the work in his own verse. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam became a sensation in England and, perhaps partly because of the Victorian passion for "oriental" poetry, a smashing success in the United States as well. Further enhanced by A. S. Byatt's fresh insights and accompanied by 12 full-color ilustrations by Edmund Dulac--a French artist known for his imaginative, lively work in versions of The Arabian Nights and Shakespeare's The Tempest--this edition of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam encompasses the very best of the old and the new.