Exhibit:

The Rubaiyat of Doc Sifers

Preview of images

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The Rubaiyat of Doc Sifers by James Whitcomb Riley

Illustrations by C.M. Relyea 

Copyright 1897 New York: The Century Co.

Images in this Exhibit

Description of my edition

This version of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is a parody named “The Rubaiyat of Doc Sifers.” It was written by James Whitcomb Riley and published by The Century Co. in 1897. James Whitcomb Riley was very popular by the time this was published, so it kind of flies under the radar of his published works. The Century Co. was also a very popular book company at the time, with many published titles under their belt. The book was illustrated by Charles M. Relyea, an illustrator from Albany, New York. Funnily enough, when he was hired to do the illustrations, James Whitcomb...
Gift Books and Orientalism
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In Barbra Black’s essay, On Exhibit: Victorians and Their Museums, she writes about how The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is appropriated by Western Culture. When Bernard Quaritch first published 250 copies of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám it did not sell very well. It wasn’t until it was picked up by a few scholars and spread around that it took off and became popular. After this, books started to emerge of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám that people described as “‘a jewel,’ ‘a Persian Pearl,’ or ‘a ruby in a ring of gold,’” (Black 60). The poem also became “...
Close Reading of Image + Text

Stanza 89 in The Rubáiyát of Doc Sifers along with this image (see figure 1), convey a greater meaning of the goodness of Doc Sifers by showing what he has gone through in the past. This window into the past of Doc Sifers also reveals some of the trauma he has experienced as a man who practices medicine. In the image, we see Doc kneeling, taking care of a man in a grass field, holding his hand as it appears the man is just waking up. The stanza begins with the line “Doc's own war-rickord wuzn't won so much in line o' fight / As line o' work and nussin' done the wownded, day and...
How This Edition Was Made

The Rubáiyát of Doc Sifers was illustrated by C.M. Relyea and published by The Century Co. The Century Co. began as Scribner and Company, a subsidiary of Charles Scribner’s Sons, in 1870. It wasn’t until after it was bought by a man named Roswell Smith that it became The Century Co. The Century Co., until its demise in 1960 when it was bought by Meredith Corporation, published a variety of books and a monthly magazine named, Century Illustrated Monthly  Magazine. Its trademark was a crest with a book on it, surrounded by the sun (at least that is what it looks like to me...
Archival Speculation

Dearest Herbert,

You will find alongside this letter a package containing the Rubaiyat of Doc Sifers. I’m sure you know that James Whitcomb Riley dedicated this book to me, but I’m afraid that I’m not vain enough to keep a book that was written about me in my library. I have even left my own inscription to you and your wife next to the one he left me when he first gave me this book (Figure 1). I’ll never forget the time we spent on the battlefield together, and how much of a help you were in my medical tent, injured and ignorant as you were. There is an illustration in the...