The Rose Garden of Omar Khayyam

Item Details

Worcester, Mass., Commonwealth Press, 1932

Recognized at one time to be the smallest book in the world, 3/16" x 1/8", this micro-miniature book is one of a suite of three. The others being a miniature book, 1 3/4" x 1 1/2" and a regular size of 5 3/4" x 5". All three similarly bound in red pebbled leather over limp covers. With a similarly bound book titled "A Thimbleful of Books: Being some account of small books and more particularly of The Smallest Book in the World",  a Proof Sheet of the micro-miniature in wraps and a miniature brass magnifying glass for reading same. Included in this set is a copy of "The Real Omar Khayyam: A Review of Eben Francis Thompson's Rose Garden of mar Khayyam by Henry Harmon Chamberlin. 

All items are housed in a custom box of marbled boards three quarter bound in red Morocco. The micro-miniature book is protected in a small gold box with a transparent lid.

Originally a Fitzgerald enthusiast, Mr. Thompson became a student of Persian. It took him 20 years to finish his first translation of The Quatrains of Omar Khayyam of Nishapur of 1115 stanzas...In 1910 came his Rose Garden of Omar Khayyam, the precursor of the definitive edition of 1932. For the latter, he has selected 46 from the 106 of the former; and has compressed into tetrameters, the pentameters which have been heretofore used by almost every successor of Edward Fitzgerald. - Henry Harmon Chamberlin.