Grabau (J.F., binder).- Hanscom (Adelaide, photographer).- Omar Khayyám. The Rubáiyát..., translated by Edward Fizgerald, photogravure plates by Adelaide Hanscom and Blanche Cumming, all on thin tissue paper, colour-printed sheet of symbols, this copy illuminated in watercolours by Irene Stanley Martin for her brother Frederick Guile Stanley with decorative border to frontispiece, hand-coloured title and borders to text, also with illuminated presentation leaf, list of precious stones used in the binding & their meanings and fair copies of letters/verses from the contributors to the binder John F.Grabau bound in, bound in dark brown morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and set with 86 precious stones, by J.F.Grabau, upper cover with inset panel inlaid with tendrils of flowers and leaves in red, green and coral morocco all tooled in gilt and inset with gem stones around an oval recessed panel mounted with a gold urn inset with large stone, border ruled and tooled in gilt and inset with stones, lower cover with recessed panel inlaid with morocco flowers & leaves and tooled in gilt within similar border but without inset stones and central feature, spine titled in gilt with five raised bands with small gilt dots and compartments of gilt-tooled red morocco floral stem, green morocco doublures ruled and tooled in gilt with similar flowers to corners, signed "19 Grabau 27" at foot of front turn-in, crimson silk moiré flyleaves, t.e.g., others uncut, 4to (c.265 x 200mm.), New York, Dodge Publishing Company, [?1905].⁂ One of the first American literary works to be illustrated with fine art photographs. Adelaide Hanscom Leeson (1875-1931) set up a photographic studio in San Francisco in 1902 with Blanche Cumming, and in 1903 they began taking photographs to illustrate the Rubáiyát, using well-known California literary figures including Charles Keeler, Joaquin Miller, George Sterling, and George Wharton James as models. John Frederick Grabau (1878-1948) trained at Gies & Co. printers in Buffalo, NY, joined the Roycroft Bindery in 1902 and founded his own Derome bindery in Buffalo in 1905. A note at the beginning states,"These and the following Poems and Letters are copied from the Autographed volume owned by John F. and Minnie M.Grabau, and passed on to my friend Frederick G.Stanley who is much interested. March 1927. JF.Grabau, Buffalo, NY." These include pieces by Joaquin Miller, Adelaide Hanscom, Charles Keeler, George Sterling, and George Wharton James, with the latter's mounted cut-signature. The precious gemstones used are moss agate, cats-eye coral, bloodstone, turquoise, garnet, matrix, opal, amethyst sardonyx and pearl.
