# Is "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" by translated by Edward FitzGerald a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by translated by Edward FitzGerald (Bernard Quaritch, 1859) is identified by: First edition, published anonymously (FitzGerald's name appears nowhere; his authorship was not public until 1875), containing seventy-five quatrains preceded by his prose introduction. The Quaritch 1859 pamphlet is the true first — the editio princeps of FitzGerald's Rubaiyat.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, published anonymously (FitzGerald's name appears nowhere; his authorship was not public until 1875), containing seventy-five quatrains preceded by his prose introduction
- FitzGerald privately commissioned about 250 wrappered copies from the Covent Garden printer G. Norman (Maiden Lane) and arranged for Bernard Quaritch's name and Castle Street, Leicester Square address to appear on the title page as publisher
- Sales failed at the printed price; the remainder was reduced to a penny and cleared from a box outside Quaritch's shop, where Whitley Stokes, and then Rossetti and Swinburne, discovered it
- Issued as a slim pamphlet in original printed paper wrappers; dealers cite the misprint 'Lightning' on page 4 as a hallmark of the genuine 1859 setting of type
- Copies surviving in the original wrappers represent the book as first issued
- Publisher imprint reads Bernard Quaritch
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | translated by Edward FitzGerald |
| Publisher | Bernard Quaritch |
| Year | 1859 |
| True first | American edition |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | First edition, published anonymously (FitzGerald's name appears nowhere; his authorship was not public until 1875), containing seventy-five… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
First edition, published anonymously (FitzGerald's name appears nowhere; his authorship was not public until 1875), containing seventy-five quatrains preceded by his prose introduction. FitzGerald privately commissioned about 250 wrappered copies from the Covent Garden printer G. Norman (Maiden Lane) and arranged for Bernard Quaritch's name and Castle Street, Leicester Square address to appear on the title page as publisher. Sales failed at the printed price; the remainder was reduced to a penny and cleared from a box outside Quaritch's shop, where Whitley Stokes, and then Rossetti and Swinburne, discovered it. Issued as a slim pamphlet in original printed paper wrappers; dealers cite the misprint 'Lightning' on page 4 as a hallmark of the genuine 1859 setting of type. Copies surviving in the original wrappers represent the book as first issued.

## Is this the true first?
The Quaritch 1859 pamphlet is the true first — the editio princeps of FitzGerald's Rubaiyat. It is anonymous, contains exactly seventy-five quatrains, is dated 1859 with the Quaritch/Castle Street imprint and the 'G. Norman' printer's line, and carries the 'Lightning' misprint on page 4. Everything else is later: the revised second (1868, 110 quatrains), third (1872, 101 quatrains) and fourth (1879, 101 quatrains, reworded) Quaritch editions were reset and are textually distinct; the first American edition (James R. Osgood, Boston, 1878) was set from the third London edition, not the 1859; and the many type-facsimiles (for example the 1927 Noel Douglas 'Replicas' facsimile) reproduce the 1859 setting on modern paper. Identify the genuine first by the 1859 title page, the seventy-five quatrains and the anonymity; separate it from facsimiles by the period paper and printed wrappers and the absence of any later publisher's or facsimile imprint.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
FitzGerald substantially rewrote the poem for the second (1868, 110 quatrains), third (1872, 101 quatrains) and fourth (1879, 101 quatrains but further reworded) editions, each textually distinct from the 1859 text; any edition naming FitzGerald as translator on the title page, or with a quatrain count other than seventy-five, is a later and textually different edition, not the anonymous 1859 pamphlet. Innumerable illustrated gift-book printings appeared from the 1880s onward and are later still. Facsimiles reproduce the 1859 text but are not the 1859 printing.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam* by translated by Edward FitzGerald a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/rubaiyat-of-omar-khayyam
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.