At the bottom of the Atlantic there is a book...

[Allegra]

And what a precious book -

The Rubaiyat: History’s most luxurious book of poetry?

 

[Harpo]

I have a nice little 1903 edition, with the same Herbert Cole illustration shown in that article, and I read it more often than any other poetry.

 

[J Riff]

And mine is a Pocketbooks Edition, 4th printing, 1948. Edward Fitzgerald translation, 75 Gordon Ross illustrations. The nude girl with a whip and a wine glass, twirling a hoop, while taming the big cats and monkeys, is on page 87.

 

[Vladd67]

And mine is a Pocketbooks Edition, 4th printing, 1948. Edward Fitzgerald translation, 75 Gordon Ross illustrations. The nude girl with a whip and a wine glass, twirling a hoop, while taming the big cats and monkeys, is on page 87.

Where the book just happens to fall open?

 

[Montero]

I am trying to remember whose autobiography it was that I read with a lovely little story about the Rubaiyat. Fairly sure it was pre WW2, maybe even pre WW1. So the autobiographer told how when she was a girl of maybe 8 or so, she had a little money to buy Christmas presents for all her family. She budgeted carefully and was particularly pleased with the book she bought for her (uncle? family friend? can't quite remember but older male not father). She'd found it in a second hand book shop, in very good condition and it was an elegant book, white with gold tracery on the cover. She thought it was perfect for said man. Was a little puzzled on Christmas day when it was unwrapped and there was a pause before the "thank you" as all the adults read the title......

 

[J Riff]

Heh. The whole book is just line drawings, and it's a fragile wartime pocketbook edition, I found it inna free box on the sidewalk up the way here, along with an encyclopaedia of Freemasonry.