£640 FOR A PENNY

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 53, 25 May 1927, Page 10

£640 FOR A PENNY

A copy of the “Rubaiyat” of Omar Khayyam has just been sold by auction in America for £640. It was a first edition of the Fitzgerald translation, which at one time could be bought in London for the modest sum of one penny. It was in 1859 that the first edition of Fitzgerald’s Omar appeared. It failed to catch on, until a well-known poet picked up a copy from the “penny box” outside a bookseller’s. He was so impressed by the beauty of the poem that he did his best to make it known, and gradually the “Rubaiyat” became popular. To-day it has probably the largest sale of any poem that has evern been written. Great artists have illustrated special editions, and Omar’s verses, whether in an expensive binding or cheap little booklet form, are a favourite gift.

Another striking proof of the poem’s popularity was furnished in 1892, when the Omar Khayyam Club was founded by a group of Fitzgerald’s admirers. Among the first members were Sir William Watson, Clement King Shorter, and Justin Huntly McCarthy.