Further booklets on Rubaiyat artists
In earlier posts, we have drawn attention to Bob Forrest’s excellent series of booklets which pull together his research on particular artists who have illustrated the Rubaiyat and the editions of their work. For more information on the first nine booklets in the series, follow the link at the end of this post.*
Over the past year, Bob has produced another five booklets in this series, bringing the total available to 14. These have been distributed privately only, but copies have been given to the main legal deposit libraries and some other libraries in the UK and can be consulted through them. The new booklets available are as follows.
No.10 Eleanor Joyce Francis (1904-1985)
No.11 Isabel Hawxhurst Hall (1887-1952)
No.12 Doris M Palmer (1896-1977) and her Publisher Husband
No.13 John Yunge-Bateman (1897-1971)
No.14 Gordon Ross (1872-1946)
The booklets are all very well produced, with many illustrations in colour as well as black and white. They can be accessed via the following UK libraries.
· the British Library,
· the National Library of Scotland,
· the National Library of Wales,
· the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford,
· the University Library, Cambridge,
· the Library of Trinity College, Dublin,
· the National Art Library, London,
· the Library of the Royal Academy of Arts, London.
If you can’t get to see this material at one of these libraries, the content is also available on Bob Forrest’s website http://www.bobforrestweb.co.uk/The_Rubaiyat/N_and_Q/ .
* For our posts on booklets 1-9, see https://omarkhayyamrubaiyat.wordpress.com/2019/05/16/more-booklets-on-rubaiyat-artists-from-bob-forrest/ and links from that post to earlier notes.
I’m not sure if this is the right place to leave this enquiry … I have been reading Bob Forrest’s website, in particular his article that includes a mention of the Rubaiyat that was an integral part of Australia’s Somerton Man mystery. An unidentified man found dead in Adelaide in 1948 with a slip of paper in his fob pocket that was torn from a Courage and Friendship Booklet #2: Version2. The book itself was later found in the back of a car that was parked nearby.
My question is whether these C&F Booklets were known to have a back flyleaf, or was the last page, the one with Tamam Shud printed after the final quatrain, the last leaf in the book.
Thanks
Peter Bowes
Hello Peter,
Figs.5f & 5g in my online essay should answer your question. The Tamam Shud page is Fig.5f and the W&T logo overleaf is Fig.5g. The cut-out Tamam Shud would have missed the the overleaf logo, which is somewhat higher up its page. The right hand side of Fig.5g shows part of the blank back page on which the ‘coded message’ and telephone number would have been written.
Bob
Thanks Bob, much appreciated. We’ve proved that the coded message couldn’t have been written on the inside back leaf and reproduced on the outside of the back cover as many have proposed as the surfaces are oppositely oriented.
Pete
Hello Pete, My impression was that the coded message was on the inside of the back cover (= the blank back page on the right hand side of Fig.5g), not the outside of the back cover.
Bob.
Bob, it was never made specific in the book written by the cold case investigator, Gerry Feltus, he was simply told the code was found written in faint pencil ‘on the back’ of the book – together with a phone number.
Hello again Pete, my “Interlude” was based largely on the extensive and referenced Wikipedia article on the case, which says “in the back of the book”, though I can see how “on the back” could have become “in the back” over the years. But in the context of my article on W&T Rubaiyats, it hardly matters. What counts here is that the copy involved in the case was quite obviously a C&F booklet #2, version 2. Incidentally, I tried to get a copy of the Feltus book & to contact Feltus himself, but without success on either count – mainly I was interested in his Rubaiyat Appendix, of course.
Thanks again, Bob, and Feltus, last I heard, was wishing we would all go away. He was very good to me years ago when I was writing a book about the mystery and I owe him.
Hello Pete, I checked with a couple of other sources & see that “in the back” should indeed be “on the back”, so I’ve now changed it. Thanks for the prompt. Bob
Bob, another question. Why would you think a single woman of 29 would give a married man of 45 a Rubaiyat inscribed with verse 79 (Fitzgerald edition)? .. Seriously.
Should be V70
Pete, My online article was concerned with the chronology of the Whitcombe & Tombs Rubaiyats, and my brief account of the Tamam Shud case was included only as an Interlude – a brief summary of the case, as a bit of interesting background. Most readers of this blog are Rubaiyat-oriented, not Tamam Shud Case oriented, and to pursue the questions you are asking now is not really appropriate to this forum. I do have a few thoughts on these questions (and one or two others) but, if you don’t mind, I think it better I send them to you via personal email. Give me a day or two – I have your email address. Hope that is OK. Bob
Thanks Bob … if I could venture another question. Would it be likely that in the years when the Rubaiyat was popular in the mainstream of western society, say 1920 to 1950, readers would have an understanding of the words Tamam Shud?