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Contact information: A. J. Frank & Co.
1826 S. Indiana Ave., Unit B, Chicago, Illinois, 60616, United States
Phone: (312) 502-7335 Fax: (312) 577-0897
Email: ajf@ajfrank.net
Website URL:
http://tomfolio.com/mall/ajfrank/
EBookseller specializing in Antiquarian and Collectible Books, History, Art, Photography, Arthurian History and Literature, Biography, Poetry, and Illustrated Editions of the Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam. All of our books are described accurately, packed carefully and shipped promptly.
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US$20,000.00
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Item number:
01423.
Khayyam, Omar, Illustrated by: Elihu Vedder
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, The Astronomer-Poet of Persia Rendered into English Verse by Edward FitzGerald with an Accompaniment of Drawings by Elihu Vedder
Publisher: Houghton, Mifflin & Company Boston 1884. First, Limited Edition of 100 copies, of which this is No. 22, signed by Vedder, with ornamental title page & 56 magnificent full-page Illustrations. Printed at the Riverside Press, Cambridge, MA. Brown flat-weave cloth over beveled boards; front cover with gilt lettering, dark brown-stamped ruled borders, symbolist design of vase, vine, swirl & stars, rear cover without decoration; spine with gilt lettering & dark brown-stamped ruled borders & ornaments; signed in gilt & dark brown-stamp on front cover, lower right 'V.'; slate coated endpapers; TEG, others untrimmed. Signed by Vedder on Limitation Page. In the ten months from May 1883 to March 1884, Elihu Vedder (1836-1923) completed a series of 54 drawings in pencil, ink, chalk, & watercolor to accompany this 1884 edition of the Rubaiyat. All of these original drawings, which were proclaimed a masterwork of American art, were included in a special exhibition of "Elihu Vedder's Drawings for the Rubaiyat" at the National Museum of American Art in 1998. The exhibition also included two first edition printings of this Rubaiyat with Vedder's "accompaniments" (he disliked the term illustrations) . Written ca. 1120 by Persian poet-philosopher Omar Khayyam (1048-1131), the Rubaiyat is a collection of quatrains, or poems of four lines, intended to prove the futility of mathematics, science, & religion in determining the meaning of life. First translated from Persian to English in 1859 by Edward Fitzgerald, editions of Khayyam's Rubaiyat have since appeared in numerous forms and languages, the best loved, best known, and most elaborate being this 1884 edition illustrated & designed by Vedder. Vedder was one of the first artists of his generation to train in Paris where he developed his Academic style and focused on what would become his favored subject: the classically proportioned female nude. Vedder also designed the book's cloth-bound cover, lining papers and eccentric hand-drawn letters. With his Academic and yet "visionary" style, Vedder was the ideal artist to interpret the Rubaiyat; he reconciled the critics who called for accurate depiction of observed reality with those who argued for feeling and emotion over objective form. Additionally, Vedder arranged the verses to express the three stages of existence explored in the Rubaiyat -- happiness and youth; death and darkness; and rebirth -- as well as to fit his own romantic interpretation of the verses. A prevalent device is his "cosmic swirl, " which, according to Vedder, represented the "gradual concentration of elements that combined to form life; the sudden pause through the reverse of the movement which marks the instant of life; & then the gradual, ever-widening dispersion again of those elements into space. "Vedder's edition of Khayyam's Rubaiyat was an instant success, selling out only six days after its debut in Boston on November 8, 1884. With the Rubaiyat, Vedder set the standard for artist-designed books in America and England. Critics
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Appr.:
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AUD 21,857.92
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CAD 21,413.28
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EUR 13,449.90
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GBP 12,113.87
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JPY 1,818,181.82
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MXN 259,740.26
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ZAR 151,515.15
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Featured Item
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US$5,995.00
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Item number:
00490.
Chair, Somerset De (Ed and Trans), Illustrated by: John Buckland-Wright
NAPOLEON'S MEMOIRS (Two Volumes)
Publisher: The Golden Cockerel Press London 1945. [Napoleon][Sangorski and Sutcliffe][Golden Cockerel Press]. 422, [1]; 78, [2] pp. 1st Printing. Woodcut Vignettes and Titles. Bound in full purple and green morocco gilt by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, engraved title vignettes and designs on the bindings by John Buckland Wright. Boards decorated with gilt bee tools and vertical gilt fillets, the spines titled in gilt and decorated with gilt bee and press device tools, in compartments separated by raised bands. Cartographic endpapers after de Chair. Top edge gilt, others uncut. Signed by the editor. With collotype reproductions of two portraits and a page of manuscript hand-written by Napoleon. FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING, SPECIAL LIMITED EDITION (Number 42 of 50) Two hardcover volumes in their original yellow buckram slipcase. One (No. 42) of only 50 copies specially bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe. The overall edition was limited to 500 numbered copies, of which this is one of fifty specially bound copies. FINE. Napoleon's Memoirs dictated to Baron Gourgaud at St. Helena, and smuggled to Europe, were first published in 1820.An English translation by Barry O'Meara, who had volunteered to go to St. Helena as Napoleon's British surgeon, was published in February, 1820, under the title Historical Memoirs of Napoleon, 1815, and French Editions were published that year in both Paris and Brussels. No English translation or edition had been published since O'Meara's translation of 1820, and de Chair was able to find copies of that translation only in the British Museum and the Bodleian Library at Oxford. His translation of Napoleon's Memoirs of the Waterloo Campaign was begun in the Wingfield Morris Orthopaedic Hospital, Oxford, on 17 July, 1943 and finished at Kinnerarach, Isle of Gigha, on 17 September, 1943."The bindings of the 'special' copies were perhaps the best to be found on any Cockerel book up to date, and could hardly be repeated, owing to the current scarcity of gold. Having used up the whole of his quota on these books, Mr. Bray of Sangorski and Sutcliffe gently dissuaded me from a repetition of such extravagance. At this date it was still possible to have leathers dyed to special colours, and the shades of purple and green were just what I had desired. " (Cockalorum 167) . "In addition to Napoleonic eagles on the title-pages, John Buckland-Wright also designed the bindings and devices on the spines. These include a bee, as this was adopted by Napoleon as a badge. His eagles are heraldically correctly portrayed as facing to the dexter, but Napoleon made it a personal point of difference to have his eagle facing to the sinister, thus following Roman precedent: the J. B. W. Eagles are therefore technically at fault. " (Reid A43) . "Designed, produced and published by Christopher Sandford at the Golden Cockerel Press, London in 13 point Perpetua type on Arnold's mould-made paper, and finished on the 28th day of August, 1945. Composition, presswork and collotyping under the supervision of F. J. New
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Appr.:
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AUD 6,551.91
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CAD 6,418.63
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EUR 4,031.61
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GBP 3,631.13
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JPY 545,000.00
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MXN 77,857.14
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ZAR 45,416.67
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Terms of Sale:
SATISFACTION GUARANTEED - Any book may be returned in the same condition within 30 days of receipt for a full refund. Unless other arrangements are made, payment must be received within ten days of your order, or the sale is void and the book will be re-listed.
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