# 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 in the pamphlet), containing seventy-five quatrains.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, published anonymously (FitzGerald's name appears nowhere in the pamphlet), containing seventy-five quatrains
- FitzGerald privately commissioned an edition of about 250 wrappered copies from a Covent Garden printer and arranged for Quaritch's name and address to appear as though publishing it; sales were so poor that Quaritch eventually sold remaining copies from a discount box
- Issued in the original printed wrappers as a slim pamphlet; surviving copies 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 | — |
| Format | Poetry |
| Key point | First edition, published anonymously (FitzGerald's name appears nowhere in the pamphlet), containing seventy-five quatrains |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
First edition, published anonymously (FitzGerald's name appears nowhere in the pamphlet), containing seventy-five quatrains. FitzGerald privately commissioned an edition of about 250 wrappered copies from a Covent Garden printer and arranged for Quaritch's name and address to appear as though publishing it; sales were so poor that Quaritch eventually sold remaining copies from a discount box. Issued in the original printed wrappers as a slim pamphlet; surviving copies in the original wrappers represent the book as first issued.

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

## 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.