New edition published of The Quatrains of Rumi

[Ibrahim Gamard]

Dear all,

I'm pleased to announce the publication of the second edition of The Quatrains of Rumi, first published in 2008:

https://www.dar-al-masnavi.org/about_qor.html

The original publisher did little to promote it, other than listing it on a few booksellers' websites, such as amazon.com. As a result, it sold poorly. Now we (Dr. Ravan Farhadi and I) have a much better publisher: Fons Vitae. I have made a number of efforts to correct, improve, and supplement the book over the last few years and am pleased with the result.

A surprising development over the past years was how the Quatrains book changed Coleman Barks' attitude toward Rumi's quatrains. He came to appreciate the value of our literal translations and abundant explanatory footnotes. He became interested in what Rumi actually said (as can best be rendered in translation).

Ibrahim

[Antony Skipper]

I have the wonderful 2008 first edition . Could you possibly say a little more on the changes in the new edition that could justify one replacing what is a very fine book? Perhaps ecven some soecific examples of improvements?

[Christopher Starbuck]

I have found the first edition to be perfect in every way, even the lovely large format which gives gravitas and beauty to the text.

I hope the new edition circulates widely though, that's what really matters. The authors have done for the quatrains in our day and age what Nicholson did for the Mesnevi in his! May the seed of their efforts bear fruit...

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[Ibrahim Gamard]

Here is more information about the improvements made in the second edition. 

There have been four major translations and versions of Rumi's quatrains published since the first edition (2004): two are versions by Coleman Barks (partly influenced by our translations and explanatory notes); one is selected translations by "Rasoul Shams" (bilingual); and the other is a complete translation of all the quatrains by Jeffrey Osborne (in two volumes, partly influenced by our translation—more informal and less literal than ours, he wrote me).  The data from these four works has been added to the quatrains concordance at the end of  the book. Unless readers have these four and wish to compare these renditions with ours, there is no need to buy the new edition. 

A friend of Dr. Farhadi read through the Persian text and found some errors which have been corrected. The chapter, "Quatrains Incorrectly Attributed to Mawlana" has been moved further back in the appendices section because I noticed a tendency for readers to treat them as the same where thes immediately followed the main section of authentic quatrains. The indexes have been improved. A new index has been added of "Paired Terms" (associated, such as moth and candle; contrary, such as night and day). The text has been thoroughly corrected. 

These are some of the improvements. I spent a couple of years making revisions; at first, for consideration of the MS by Gibb Memorial Trust and finally, Fons Vitae. A main obstacle  was always our insistence (that is, Dr. Farhadi's and my insistence) that the book be published together with the Persian texts. A major motive is to make the book more known to readers most likely to buy it and to have it be more available on the Internet and university and public libraries (instead of being largely unnoticed near the bottoms of "Rumi books" search lists, as it has for so many years.

Ibrahim 

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[Antony Skipper]

Thanks for all the feedback! I too loved the format ( as well ss the content!) of the original edition, and I hope the new edition is just as good in that regard. The dimensions for each book (as published on Amazon) are 7.44 x 1.52 x 9.69" with 764p (my copy has 707p !?) for the first  edition and 7.07 × 1.7 x 9.99" with 816p for the new Fons Vitae edition - almost exactly the dimensions of the very fine Fons Vitae commentary on Book One of the Masnavi by Kenan Rivai / Victoria Holbrook. So I hope for no loss in quality in presentation ( and of course some worthwhile additions/ changes to the text!).

Anyway, I have ordered my copy of the 2nd edition.