{"id":29870,"date":"2026-03-25T16:30:38","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T16:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=29870"},"modified":"2026-03-25T15:04:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T15:04:30","slug":"rs-sherriffs-rubaiyat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2026\/03\/25\/rs-sherriffs-rubaiyat\/","title":{"rendered":"RS Sherriffs’ Rub\u00e1iy\u00e1t"},"content":{"rendered":"

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You can’t really say there are always more Rub\u00e1iy\u00e1ts<\/em>\u2014the Fitzgerald translation isn’t as popular today as it was a century ago\u2014but there are many illustrated editions even though the poem makes for a slim volume when not bulked out by variant translations. The popularity of the text when combined with the ease of imitating Edward Fitzgerald’s quatrains led to the publication of many novelty versions\u2014The Rub\u00e1iy\u00e1t of a Persian Kitten<\/em><\/a>, The Rub\u00e1iy\u00e1t of a Motor Car<\/em><\/a>, The Rub\u00e1iy\u00e1t of a Bachelor<\/em><\/a>, and so on\u2014all of which came with their own illustrations.<\/p>\n

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The 1947 edition<\/a> illustrated by Scottish artist Robert Stewart Sherriffs is more serious than these, with an introduction by Laurence Housman, the texts of three different 19th-century translations, together with supplementary material about Edward Fitzgerald. Sherriffs worked for a number of years as a caricaturist<\/a> for Punch<\/em> magazine and other publications but prior to this he was also a book illustrator. Most of his drawings are black-and-white ink renderings; the Rub\u00e1iy\u00e1t<\/em> is a rare example of him working in colour throughout.<\/p>\n

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Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The illustrators archive<\/a><\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 Willy Pog\u00e1ny\u2019s Rub\u00e1iy\u00e1t<\/a>
\n\u2022 Edmund J. Sullivan\u2019s Rub\u00e1iy\u00e1t<\/a>
\n\u2022 RS Sherriffs\u2019 Tamburlaine the Great<\/a>
\n\u2022 Adelaide Hanscom\u2019s Rub\u00e1iy\u00e1t<\/a>
\n\u2022 Ren\u00e9 Bull\u2019s Rub\u00e1iy\u00e1t<\/a>
\n\u2022 Ronald Balfour\u2019s Rub\u00e1iy\u00e1t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can’t really say there are always more Rub\u00e1iy\u00e1ts\u2014the Fitzgerald translation isn’t as popular today as it was a century ago\u2014but there are many illustrated editions even though the poem makes for a slim volume when not bulked out by variant translations. The popularity of the text when combined with the ease of imitating Edward … Continue reading “RS Sherriffs’ Rub\u00e1iy\u00e1t”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"New blog post: RS Sherriffs' Rub\u00e1iy\u00e1t","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,42,48],"tags":[3752,1617,6043],"class_list":["post-29870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-books","category-illustrators","tag-edward-fitzgerald","tag-omar-khayyam","tag-rs-sherriffs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-7LM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29870\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}