The Rubaiyat of Umar Khaiyam: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Rubaiyat of Umar Khaiyam, credited to Omar Khayyám, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The Rubaiyat of Umar Khaiyam by Omar Khayyám. (Translated by Jean Baptiste Nicolas & Frederic Rolfe.) Read in English by Algy Pug In 1867 Jean Baptiste Nicolas (1814-1875), scholar and career diplomat, published the first major French translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. This version is in prose and the collection contains 464 verses. In Nicolas’ view, Omar was no Epicurean reveler but rather a relentless spiritual seeker – his frequent allusions to wine and lovers are metaphors, expressive of a divine discontent that can only be resolved by union with a mystical beloved. However, most other translators and commentators regard Omar as a man who sampled and enjoyed both earthly and philosophical delights. In 1903 Frederic Rolfe, the self styled “Baron Corvo”, published an English translation of Nicolas’ version. In the same year Robert Arnot published a collection of translations which also included an English version of Nicolas’ text. While both these translations are in prose, Rolfe’s version, with its heraldic and evocative verbiage, and its presentation of Omar as a more rounded personality than Nicolas’ etiolated mystic, can be considered, as with Fitzgerald’s celebrated translation, as an independent work of art. (Summary by Algy Pug)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Rubaiyat of Umar Khaiyam
• Author credits: Omar Khayyám
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 5
• Listed recording duration: 2:37:23

Catalogue topics

• poetry
• omar khayyam
• Rubaiyat

Track guide

1. 01 - Verses 1 - 100 — 34:55
2. 02 - Verses 101 - 200 — 32:00
3. 03 - Verses 201 - 300 — 34:30
4. 04 - Verses 301 - 400 — 33:51
5. 05 - Verses 401 - 464 — 22:07

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.