The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:
1950s H. Kashani M. Tajvidi Edition
This spiral bound H. Kashani edition has gilding by A. Bagheri while M. Tajvidi is the miniturist has a landscape presentation. I’m assuming M. Tajvidi is the one who did the art.
The poetry is presented in four languages from what I can tell: English, French, German (though some pages are lacking it), and I’m guessing Farsi. It doesn’t seem to be 100% one of FitzGerald editions…the quatrains seem to be in no particular order, most seem to be a match to the FitzGerald first edition, but there is at least one quatrain that isn’t a match. I didn’t do a check of each quatrain.
I’ve approximated it as being from the 1950s as there is a signed note dated from 1958. I do not have it photographed out of respect. It makes the copy feel personal, sort of a window into another world with all of its other interesting qualities. It is hard to explain.
All in all, this is a very unique edition and I’m lucky to have it.
Update 09/2023: Updated the layout, replaced all the pictures since the coloring was awful on the originals, and overhauled the page copy with new observations.
Publisher: H. Kashani (Tehran, Iran)
Year: n.d., ~1950s (no year given, approximation based on note dated 1958)
Artist: M. Tajvidi? (miniturist)
The Book Itself
The first and last pages have a plastic cover over them. The pages themselves have an interesting texture. It is sort of board-like.
The Poetry
The pictures below are of the entire page: both the poetry and the art beside it.
If the quatrain is a match to any in the FitzGerald first edition (all but one featured), I’ve marked it as such.
