The Rubaiyat of Omar Cayenne

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Pages: 24

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About this book

Publishers, critics and fashionable authors all come under fire in Gelett Burgess's comic quatrains. Published in 1904, this parody of Omar Khayyam turns its attention to the business of modern literature: crowded book lists, advertising campaigns, magazine formulas and the uncertain rewards of writing. Familiar literary names appear beside newspapers and publishers, while the speaker complains about obscure stories, forgettable best sellers and editors who prefer reliable sales to artistic ambition.

The joke also falls on the poet himself. He worries about royalties, boasts of his own nonsense and admits that satire can find buyers when other writing fails. Short rhyming stanzas give these grievances a brisk, conversational rhythm. Readers interested in literary parody or the commercial pressures behind books will find a pointed account of how publicity, public taste and a writer's vanity can pull in different directions.

About the author

Gelett Burgess

Gelett Burgess worked as a humorist, illustrator, editor, and writer within the literary culture of turn-of-the-century San Francisco. He became widely known for playful verse and for experimenting with language, but his fiction also used satire to examine urban types and social performance.