COVE

The Rubáiyát of a Scotch Terrier was first published in 1926 New York by the company Frederick A. Stokes Company (see image 1). It’s hard to find very much information about the book from the time it was published. Which is relevant to what scholar Annmarie S. Drury says on American parodists of the Rubáiyát. She states, “Scholars sometimes acknowledge the existence of Rubáiyát parodies, but discussion of them has been limited and compartmentalized” (194 Poole). I find this to be the case for my edition because throughout my whole research process this term, I have found very little information about both the edition as well as the author. Though I have found more information about the author/illustrator than I thought I would in comparison to the book.

The illustrator of this edition is the author himself, Sewell Collins. Collins was born in Denver, Colorado in 1876 to his two parents. From there he went to schooling at several institutions. After his education, he got his start in the entertainment business as a cartoonist and reporter at the Chicago Daily News. Collins was a man of many trades which we can see here in his career history. He later went on to become a playwright, painter, artist, writer, and illustrator. Though there isn’t much information about his life either, he seems to be most famous for his time as a dramatist. One of the most interesting fun facts about him to me is that he was one of the first playwrights to depict prostitutes in a non-malicious way. He depicted them as women who simply turned to the trade for one reason or another in a way that didn’t use judgment, they were just characters who happened to be prostitutes. 

Copies of the edition tend to be up for auction or sale as antiquarian or rare books. The prices range anywhere from twenty dollars to seventy-five dollars. The stores these can be found at are eBay, The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America, Amazon, AbeBooks, and others. There is also a Bookseller's Ticket in the inside of the back of the book that reads, “From JERROLD NEDWICK, Antiquarian Bookseller, 2013 Prairie CHICAGO. 16, I11.” (See Image 2).

The most information I could find about parodies on Fitzgerald’s translation of Khayyam’s Rubáiyát are from chapter twelve of FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: Popularity and Neglect. Drury discusses the different types of parodies that came about, why they did, and how they parody the original or Fitzgerald’s translation. She distinguishes the reasoning as, “With its distinctive stanza form and its memorable aphorisms, the poem was a highly visible target” (193 Poole). The format, length, and diction are very specific to the poem. Thus they make good candidates for borrowing language and creating interesting imagery. Drury identifies two types of parodies of Khayyam’s work. One being spoof parodies and the other being satire parodies. She defines spoof parodies as, “connected to FitzGerald’s poem mainly by diction” (194 Poole). This means the parody borrows language alone from the subject as a means for comedy and doesn’t satirize any of the actual meaning or “ethos” of the original. This is where I categorize Collins’ parody because of its lack of ethics, connection to Khayyam’s philosophy, or reference/depiction of Persian culture. 

Poole, Adrian, et al., editors. FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: Popularity and Neglect. Anthem Press, 2011. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1gxp93m. Accessed 23 May 2023.