The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:
1948 Everyman's Library Edition with Six Plays of Calderon

This Rubaiyat edition is combined with the Six Plays of Calderon as one entity that is the 819th book in the Everyman’s Library (which apparently has its own interesting history that continues to recent times). The Rubaiyat is presented first and foremost, however.

There are no illustrations, but it was “Decorated by Eric Ravilous”. It is highly utilitarian in construct for reasons clear below.

On the page related to printing and publishing info, it says it was “produced in complete conformity with the authorized economy standards”. The war economy standards. It was printed after WWII, which made it even odder and all the more interesting.

So, curious about what it meant, I searched around for more information and context. Which led me to the following pages of interest:

• This BBC archived page.
• This article/post written and compiled by another curious individual, a professor named Chris Forster. The article is fascinating due to the history detailed and his own investigation into actual paper usage. Good read and very helpful!

TLDR of the above articles: it was related to WWII paper rationing and it lasted slightly beyond the war’s end. Intriguing stuff!

So, the actual edition isn’t that interesting when you compare it with other Rubaiyat editions, but the history of its construction is!

Update 09/2023: Updated layout, added some more text, added pictures. I didn’t swap the thumbnail for the actual book cover on this one. I may eventually change my mind.