Great Omar Jewelled Bookbinding, C.188.c.27

3D ModelNoAI

An elaborately gold tooled, jewelled and onlaid bookbinding covering an 1884 Boston [Mass] edition of Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, the astronomer-poet of Persia, rendered into English verse by Edward Fitzgerald, with an accompaniment of drawings by Elihu Vedder; a bequest to the British Library by Mr & Mrs Stanley Bray in 2005. The bookbinding firm of Sangorski & Sutcliffe were famous for their jewelled bookbindings. Their first binding (created 1909-1911) on this edition of the Rubáiyát was lost on the Titanic as it was being exported to the U.S.A. in 1912. The binding was was recreated by Sutcliffe’s nephew, binder Stanley Bray, from 1932 to 1939 but was destroyed in the London Blitz of 1941. Bray created a third jewelled binding from 1985 taking 4 years of his retirement.

License: CC Attribution (CC BY © British Library Board)