Exhibit:

Balfour's Magnum Opus: Illustrating Khayyám's Rubáiyát for a Gift Book Culture

Preview of images

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam book cover Nude woman with frond Woman in garden Woman outside near water Book publication info (Chiswick Press) Cluster of grapes
Nude women adorned in feathers drinking Woman in royal garb reclining on divan Nude woman sitting down eating an apple Nude women and a peacock Illustration of royal woman and man with logographic symbol
Pages for Stanza 14 of Balfour's Rubaiyat edition and its matching image of a young, beautiful woman
Title page of Balfour-illustrated Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Early page in Balfour-illustrated Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam book cover

Part of Group:

ENG 470/570: Archive Fever

This digital archival experience centers on engagement with a 1920 Ronald Balfour-illustrated copy of Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám that is housed in Oregon State University's Special Collection & Archives Research Center. Specifically, the curator describes in detail certain physical, artistic, historical, and paratextual features of this book while considering its place in Victorian England gift book culture. The curator also offers a close reading of image and text by comparing one of the Rubáiyát stanzas in this text to its corresponding illustration and partakes in archival speculation (i.e., in the form of a letter) to imagine what circumstances might have predicated the giving of this particular gift book.

Images in this Exhibit

Description of Edition
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam book cover Nude woman with frond Woman in garden Woman outside near water Book publication info (Chiswick Press) Cluster of grapes

This text, entitled Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, is a first edition copy of Edward FitzGerald’s original translation published in 1859. The title itself appears to have been Anglicanized, lacking accent marks in the first and final words that would typically be transliterated as Rubáiyát and Khayyám, respectively. Besides mentioning Khayyám in the title of the text, no other authors or translators are indicated; only the name of the illustrator, Ronald Balfour, is provided. Balfour’s illustrations here range in terms complexity and style. Some images are simpler,...
Gift Books and Orientalism
Nude women adorned in feathers drinking Woman in royal garb reclining on divan Nude woman sitting down eating an apple Nude women and a peacock Illustration of royal woman and man with logographic symbol

In On Exhibit: Victorians and Their Museums, Barbara Black maintains that in the aftermath of Edward FitzGerald’s 1859 translation of Omar Khayyám’s Rubáiyát, Great Britain reduced the significance of Khayyám’s poetry—and the Persian history and culture to which it connects—to being “categorically Oriental” (61). Black argues that western consumerism culture is a driving force behind this phenomenon, as it promotes the notion of collecting (i.e., owning) as a type of conquest. In the case of FitzGerald’s translation of Rubáiyát, Black claims that the British...
Close Reading of Image and Text
Pages for Stanza 14 of Balfour's Rubaiyat edition and its matching image of a young, beautiful woman

In this Ronald Balfour-illustrated edition of Omar Khayyám’s Rubáiyát, Balfour devotes an illustration to each stanza, and the majority of these images depict beautiful (i.e., according to western conventions) and frequently nude women. Understandably, it could be argued that certain illustrations do not conceptually synchronize with their corresponding stanzas; for instance, how does a partially naked woman pertain to a muezzin crying from the tower of darkness in Stanza XXV? Still, at the same time, there are numerous instances where the stanza and Balfour’s illustration are...
On How This Edition Was Made
Title page of Balfour-illustrated Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Early page in Balfour-illustrated Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

The Ronald Balfour-illustrated text, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, is unique not only in its artistic aesthetic but also because there appears to be multiple publishing companies involved in its publication. Printed in 1920, this particular edition contains the names of two distinct publishers in the front pages—Dodd, Mead, and Company (See Image 1) and Chiswick Press: Charles Whittingham and Griggs (See Image 2).

Dodd, Mead, and Company was a family-run publishing business founded in 1839 that originally only published religious and theological books until the...
Archival Speculation
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam book cover

The enigmatic aspects of this gift book, such as its lack of inscriptions or any context about its giving or its reception, invite much archival speculation. In this interest, the letter below offers one of infinite possible explanations:

31 January 1921

My Dear Samuel,

I hope you had a jolly good time on your birthday. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to celebrate, but I trust this gift book will make up for it. Take Khayyám’s advice: “fill the Cup that clears / To-day of past Regrets and future Fears.”

I spared no expense when I saw this edition. I...