First Hebrew edition of the "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", owned by Rav Kook and Yehuda Leib Maimon

Khayyam, Omar / Imber, Naphtali Herz (transl.). Ha-kos [...] me-et Omar Khayam, meturgam Ivrit me-et Naftali Herts Imber. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Rendered into English verses by Edward Fitzgerald. Rendered into Hebrew by Naphtali Herz Imber.

€ 850.00

First Hebrew edition of the famous "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", translated by Naphtali Herz Imber (1856-1909) and published with the English text of Edward FitzGerald. Contains an English introduction by Joseph Jacobs and English verses to Imber by George Alexander Kohut, as well as verses in English and Hebrew "to Omar" by Imber. The only other contemporary Hebrew translation, by Joseph Massel, would appear in Manchester in 1907.

"Text of FitzGerald's fourth edition with Hebrew translation on opposite pages. Many copies were destroyed by fire at the printers. The translator died in poverty, September 1909" (Potter).

Formerly in the collection of Abraham Isaac Kook (Rav Kook, 1865-1935), the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine and one of the fathers of religious Zionism, with his Jerusalem library stamp to verso of title-page. Later in the collection of Rabbi Yehuda Leib Maimon (Fishman, 1875-1962), Israel's first Minister of Religions, with his Jerusalem bookplate on the front pastedown. Maimon helped draft Israel's Declaration of Independence and was one of its signers.