Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Presented by Willy Pogany

London : George G. Harrap & Co., [c. 1925]. Octavo, full calf elaborately decorated with Persian gilt designs, gilt lettering and decoration to spine (edges a little rubbed), top edge gilt, unpaginated, the verse of Khayyam printed within decorative borders and Persian vignette designs, 16 tipped-in full page colour plates after Willy Pogany paintings, a very good copy.

The Rubaiyat is a collection of poems exploring the human condition attributed to the 12th-century Persian poet, astronomer, and mathematician Omar Khayyám. William Andrew Pogany (born Vilmos András Feichtmann, or Feuchtmann, 1882 – 1955) was a highly regarded and prolific Hungarian painting of folk lore and children’s literature. Based on the translation of Edward Fitzgerald, published by Quaritch in 1859, the first edition of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam illustrated by Pogany was published in 1909. This striking production from the art deco period of the mid-1920s is prized by collectors for its elaborate binding and fine illustrations.