The Mitre Press of London published two editions of The Rubaiyat, both using FitzGerald’s first version. The first was Everybody’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, whose cover (16.5cm x 10.4cm) is shown in Fig.1a and whose title page is shown in Fig.1b. This edition was unillustrated, was printed in red ink, and, with some inserted sub–headings, featured FitzGerald’s Introduction at the end, effectively as an appendix. Though not dated, the acquisition date of the copy in the British Library reads 9 July 43 (Fig.1c), and one copy known to me actually bears an inscription dating to that year.
The second Mitre Press edition was The Illustrated Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, whose cover (19.3cm x12.9cm) is shown in Fig.2a and whose title–page is shown in Fig.2b. Though the title–page indicates a change of address between the two editions, it does not name the illustrator, and nor is the illustrator named anywhere else in the book, aside from below each of the six black and white illustrations, where the name DOUGHTY appears in capitals, as we shall see presently. FitzGerald’s Introduction does not feature in this edition, and once again it is undated. However, the acquisition date of the copy in the British Library reads 16 Dec 46 (Fig.2c.)
The six illustrations are shown here as Figs.2d, 2e, 2f, 2g, 2h & 2i, and a few brief comments on each are in order at this point. [The images can be browsed here.] Note that though I refer to verse numbers in FitzGerald’s first edition in what follows, the verses are not actually numbered in the book itself.
Fig.2d: The frontispiece, facing the first two verses, is seemingly not related to either of them, nor to any particular later verse, for that matter, and so is quite possibly generic. It depicts Omar, with his Beloved pouring wine into his cup, this presumably giving rise to his somewhat inane grin. The figure of Death with his Scythe stands on the right, looking uncaringly away from them, presumably conveying the message, “Enjoy life while you can, for Death is never very far away,” a thought that has rattled down through the ages from ancient Egyptian times. An excellent example comes from the Latin poem “Copa” (The Barmaid) contained in a collection of pseudo–Virgilian poems known as The Appendix Virgiliana. It is a song sung by the Barmaid to her customers, urging them to eat, drink and be merry, for “Death is tweaking my ear and says: ‘Live it up now, for I am coming.’” (Translation by H. Rushton Fairclough, revised by G.P. Goold, Loeb, 2000.) The bird in the background could be just decoration (compare Fig.2h below), but it could also be a reference to the Bird of Time in verse 7, which “has but a little way / To fly – and Lo! The Bird is on the Wing”; or to the Nightingale in verse 72, “Ah, whence and wither flown again, who knows!” Finally, what is the dark shape behind the figure of Death ? Is this perhaps the Veil past which Omar could not see in verse 32 – the barrier that presents us from seeing beyond the grave ? (See also the Postscript below.)
Fig.2e: This faces verses 10, 11 & 12, but is not seemingly related to any of them, and so is again possibly generic. Omar has ‘rings round his eyes’, presumably indicative of too much wine, with a spilled (?) wine–cup before him. This, in conjunction with Fig.2d, adopts the stance that Omar’s wine drinking was literally that of a toper. (FitzGerald, of course, at the end of the Preface to his third and fourth editions, maintained that, as regards wine, Omar “bragged more than he drank of it.”) Omar’s topless Beloved is in the background, dancing with a tambourine, again adhering to a hedonistic interpretation of The Rubaiyat. Finally, there is the prominent and mysterious winged figure to the right, presumably an Angel, though seemingly in classical military dress, which might bring to mind the image of St. Michael, save that he has no halo and no lance or sword with which, traditionally, he slays the Dragon of Satan, who is likewise absent in any shape or form. Instead, he seems to gesture towards a flower, making for a very puzzling image indeed, though I wonder if he is somehow representative of the antithesis of the hedonism of Omar and his Beloved, a Judge of their conduct, perhaps. (If the flower is a Lily, it is traditionally symbolic of Purity and Virtue, though it is associated with St. Gabriel as the Angel of the Annunciation, and not the warrior angel, St. Michael. St. Gabriel was not a warrior angel, so the mystery of this illustration remains.)
Fig.2f: This faces verses 27, 28 & 29, and seems to relate to verses 27 & 28, with Omar (note his eyes again) turning away from the arguing Doctors & Saints, preceded by his Beloved bearing a jug of wine on her shoulder.
Fig.2g: This faces verses 44, 45 & 46, possibly representing a procession of Phantom Figures, coming and going, as in verse 46. Note the contrasting old woman and young woman at the front; the military figure with pennant behind them, and the Jester (?) to the lower left, who brings to mind John Gay’s famous epitaph, “Life is a jest, and all things show it; / I thought so once, and now I know it.” Note also the figure of Christ, bearing his Cross, in the distance and, rather curiously, a dancing figure just in front of him – a stark contrast that is surely deliberate – you go your way, I’ll go mine, in effect; or perhaps, some have a Cross to bear in this life, others seemingly dance through it without a care.
Fig.2h: This faces verses 54, 55, 56 & 57, but does not obviously relate to any of them. It seems to fit verse 52 better (“Lift not thy hands to It for help &c” – the “It” being the inverted Bowl of the Sky.) Note the grinning face peering out over the (wine ?) jug in the lower right hand corner. The two birds and the dead bush / tree in the background are presumably decorative.
Fig.2i: This faces verse 75 & Tamam Shud. Whereas all the previous illustrations have been full–page ones, this is more of a large vignette. Though it doesn’t relate directly to verse 75 it does share the theme of Omar’s death, seemingly depicting Omar being taken to Heaven by an Angel. A memento mori skull tops the frame of the design and Finis = Tamam Shud, of course.
The illustrations are all noticeably dark, both in execution and content, and it has been suggested that this may reflect the darkness of the war years and their immediate aftermath. Not only that, but hedonism does tend to proliferate in wartime, when the threat to life promotes an attitude of “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” Earlier, in the First World War, as is well known, many troops took a copy of The Rubaiyat to the battlefield with them, and in 1915 The Times newspaper recorded the case of a sergeant actually intoning many of its stanzas as he moved up and down the trenches (issue of 29 September, p.6, col.6.) Indeed, in 1916 Cecil Palmer & Hayward actually published a Haversack Edition of FitzGerald’s first version with an appropriately khaki coloured cover (Potter #111.)
It has also been pointed out that the faces of Omar in Figs.2d, 2e & 2f are noticeably different, almost as if they were different people. Discounting the possibility that the artist just wasn’t very good at faces, this is rather puzzling, and one wonders if the faces carry some symbolic import rather than being portraits. That is, each is a generic Omarian type, rather than a depiction of the same person. But then why couldn’t the message be conveyed by depicting the same Omar with different facial expressions ?
[The images can be browsed here.]
As indicated earlier, the name of DOUGHTY features beneath the frame of each of the six illustrations, to the lower right in all bar Fig.2h, where it is to the lower left. But who was DOUGHTY ?
A past listing on Amazon has confidently asserted that the illustrator was C. L. Doughty, but then anyone who does an online search for artists or book illustrators named Doughty will almost inevitably bump into Cecil Langley Doughty (1913–1985) first, as he has a Wikipedia page devoted to him. But this says nothing about any books he illustrated, merely that he was a prolific illustrator of comics and magazines. For various publications from about 1948 he illustrated adventure stories like Dick Turpin, Robin Hood, King Solomon’s Mines, Treasure Island, Ivanhoe, and Last of the Mohicans, as well as classics like Oliver Twist, Lorna Doone and Three Men in a Boat. Most notably, from its inception in 1962 until its demise in 1982, he did hundreds of illustrations for the educational magazine for young people, Look and Learn. Many of these were unsigned, but some were signed C.L. Doughty, some with the initials CLD, and some with just Doughty. This last, of course, is suggestive, though it is in lower case letters: two examples are shown in Figs.3a & 3b, both dating from 1972. But his comic and magazine illustrations are generally so different in style to The Rubaiyat illustrations that one hesitates to attribute them to the same artist.
Two useful articles about Cecil L. Doughty, though concentrating mainly on his work for comics and magazines, are a) “Blades and Brocades: the Art of Cecil Langley Doughty” by David Ashford, published in Illustrators issue 2 (2012), and b) “Great Comic Artists No.21: C.L. Doughty” by David Ashford & Norman Wright, published in Book and Magazine Collector (September 2005.) The former is effectively an enhanced version of the latter, and though both touch on a few books illustrated by Doughty, The Rubaiyat isn’t one of them.
Again, there is no mention of him – or any other Doughty for that matter – in Brigid Peppin and Lucy Micklethwait’s Dictionary of British Book Illustrators: the 20th Century (1983) nor in Alan Horne’s Dictionary of 20th Century British Book Illustrators (1994).
Finally, though the edition is listed on Jisc Hub (COPAC) and WorldCat, nowhere is Cecil Langley Doughty (or any other Doughty) named.
I managed to make contact with Christopher Doughty, the artist’s son. But it turned out that he wasn’t familiar with any edition of The Rubaiyat illustrated by his father. However, when I sent him copies of the illustrations he told me they were, “Absolutely typical of his work and the sort of thing he would have jumped at the chance of illustrating.” He went on:
His work for comics and magazines was a financial necessity that he did not greatly enjoy. He was much happier doing historical illustrations, had a huge library of reference books, and his agent increasingly gave him a free hand to add to the narrative and create pictures to match. I am sure he would have contributed more than just pictures to the Rubaiyat – he would have had very definite ideas about how the pictures should relate to the translation. This was him, always believing the pictures to enhance the narrative.
Indeed, The Rubaiyat illustrations given above do have an added dimension to FitzGerald’s text – they are not simply literal depictions of the verses. This, of course, is promising but not as 100% conclusive as, for example, Chris having been told by his father about doing the Mitre Press Rubaiyat, or having in his possession at least some of the original drawings for it. (“Sadly,” Chris told me, “many of his pre–publication pen and ink originals on board, complete with annotations, eventually ended up in a skip outside the Temple Art Agency, in London, though some do surface occasionally on ebay!”)
So, did Amazon listing mentioned earlier just assume its confident attribution based on Wikipedia or similar ?
I decided – just in case – to search for another Doughty who might have been our Rubaiyat illustrator, and it might be as well at this point to indicate my approach for the benefit of anyone else who wants to follow the trail.
On the assumption that anyone who illustrated a book published in London in 1946 would probably be on record somewhere in the online 1939 England and Wales Register, I began by doing a broad search for any Doughty, male or female, with exact occupation “artist”. There were nine results, one of which was a “photolitho retouching artist”; one a “photograph & colour artist”; and two of which were listed as “actress and variety artist.” These four can clearly be discounted. Of the remaining five artists, two were sisters, Susan D. Doughty (born 1892), and Frederica G. Doughty (born 1894), both listed as “artist”, living with their mother in Cranbrook, Kent. The other three were men, all listed as “commercial artist”: Wm. D. Doughty (born 1922) living in Beckenham, Kent; Stephen Q. R. Doughty (born 1923), living in Bethnall Green, London; and, the one we have already met, Cecil L. Doughty (born 1913), living in Wandsworth, London.
We can rule the Doughty sisters out as they were both potters and sculptors, both notably working for Royal Worcester, mainly in the 1950s. Susan Dorothy Doughty specialised in figures of birds, her sister, Frederica Gertrude, in figures of children.
Wm. D. Doughty was William Donald Doughty, and he died in Bromley, Kent in 2008. I could find no trace of any book illustrated by him, so I can only assume that in his case “commercial artist” meant working for newspapers or magazines, or perhaps in advertising.
Stephen Q.R. Doughty was Stephen Quinton Russel Doughty, and though electoral rolls show that he was living in Bethnal Green, London, in 1945–7, and in Wokingham, Berkshire in 1952–7, he died in Wales in 1981. I would assume, then, that he was the Stephen Doughty who illustrated Storian Aelwyd Brynclyd, a story for Welsh–reading children or adults learning Welsh, by Brenda Wyn Jones, published in Aberystwyth in 1972. Two of the (unsigned) illustrations are shown here as Figs.4a & 4b, and are clearly very much 1960s & early 1970s. A broad sweep of Jisc Hub (formerly COPAC) reveals no books illustrated under his full name, nor under Stephen Q.R. Doughty, but that he did, under the name Stephen Doughty, illustrate G.F. Lamb’s One Hundred Good Stories, Books 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6, first published in Exeter in 1969, with subsequent reprints. Two sample, but again unsigned, illustrations from Book 1 are shown in Figs.5a & 5b. As can be seen, these are again aimed at young people, and though artists can and do change their styles, Stephen Doughty does seem an unlikely candidate for the Doughty who illustrated the Mitre Press Rubaiyat. (Though there is some similarity in style between his Fig.5b and some of C.L. Doughty’s historical pictures – Fig.9d below, for example – the latter is more detailed and skilled in technique.)
We are thus brought back to Cecil Langley Doughty, and though his career as a magazine and comic illustrator seemingly makes him as unlikely as Stephen Doughty at first, this turns out not actually to be the case. At this point it is useful to take a look at C.L. Doughty’s life and work. The following is largely based on David Ashford’s excellent 2012 article in Illustrators issue 2, mentioned above.
Cecil Langley Doughty was born on 7 November 1913 in Patrington, near Withernsea in the East Riding of Yorkshire, the youngest of eight children (five boys and three girls.) His parents were William Henry Doughty (1873–1949) and Annie Kate Florence Doughty (née Bennett.) (1876–1948.) His middle name Langley was his paternal grandmother’s maiden name. Though his father began his working life as a Post Office Clerk and later became an Insurance Agent, he was apparently a keen amateur painter, which may at least in part have contributed to Cecil’s interest in art. It appears, though, that Cecil was the only professional artist in the family.
He studied art at Battersea (now Chelsea) Polytechnic, though he appears not have thought much of the quality of the training it gave him, referring to it as “such as it was.” Leaving there in 1931 he took up illustration work for various periodicals such as The Graphic, Woman’s Companion and Radio Times.
In 1939 he married children’s nurse Hilda Carmen Newell and in 1941 their son, Christopher, was born. It was to be a long and happy marriage.
Cecil’s career was interrupted by the Second World War, of course, during which he served in the army in Egypt as, in his own words, “a grossly inadequate Lance Corporal” (Fig.6). During the war Carmen and her son went to live with her parents in Newquay, Cornwall, but when Cecil returned from the War they took up residence with him in London, where it would be easier for him to find work. It was only in 1948, though, that his career as an illustrator of comics took off, with numerous contributions to the likes of Thriller Comics throughout the 1950s, Eagle in the 1960s, and, as already noted, Look and Learn from 1962 to 1982. In other words, the bulk of his comic and magazine illustration post–dated The Rubaiyat by a number of years.
With the demise of Look and Learn in 1982, C.L. Doughty effectively retired, he and his wife moving to Ross–on–Wye, though he continued to paint for pleasure – landscapes in both oils and watercolours. In 1983 his wife of some 44 years died, the devastated artist never fully recovering from the loss. He moved from the marital home in Ross–on–Wye to Carmarthen to be near his son, and he died there on 26 October 1985.
One of the earliest books he illustrated seems to have been Thomas Alva Edison – Builder of Civilisation by H. Gordon Garbedian, published in London – it is undated, but the British Library dates it to [1947]. Its dust–jacket is shown in Fig.7a – the design, which extends from the front cover, across the spine, and onto the back, depicts the widespread wonderment at Edison’s invention of the electric light bulb. At the bottom right of the front of the dust–jacket is the easily missed signature DOUGHTY (enlarged in Fig.7b) The title–page (naming C.L. Doughty as illustrator), with the frontispiece portrait of Edison, is shown in Fig.7c, the latter bearing the signature, with date, “Doughty ’47”. Besides the frontispiece, the book contains 18 black and white illustrations – 6 signed full–page illustrations and 12 unsigned half–page in–text illustrations. An example of the former is shown in Fig.7d (p.91 – the invention of the phonograph), signed and dated “CLD ’47” to the lower right; an example of the latter in Fig.7e (p.116 – the invention of the light bulb again – cf. Fig.7a.) (Recall Chris Doughty’s comments on his father’s fondness for historical subjects, quoted above.)
Another of the earliest books he illustrated was Once in a Blue Moon by Margaret Gibbs, published in London in 1948. Its dust–jacket is shown in Fig.8a and its title–page (naming C.L. Doughty as illustrator) with frontispiece in Fig.8b. At the bottom left of the dust–jacket and the frontispiece is the signature DOUGHTY. The book contains four full page black and white illustrations and twenty–five smaller in–text illustrations ranging in size from small vignettes to half a page. None are signed. I give three examples here – Fig.8c is one of the half–page illustrations (p.11) and Figs.8d & 8e two the full–page ones (p.67 & p.87.) To those more familiar with Doughty’s action packed adventure story illustrations, these, like the dust–jacket design, will come as a surprise, and yet they are by the same artist.
Next came The Pictorial History Book published in London in 1954 – it was actually undated, but the accession date of the copy in the British Library is [1954]. Fig.9a shows the title–page and Fig.9b a typical two–page spread from it (p.28–9). The book was aimed at younger readers and sought to give them a broad overview of British History from the earliest times to the present day of the 1950s. (Recall again Chris Doughty’s comments on his father’s fondness for historical themes, quoted earlier.) Leafing through it shows clearly that it was very much a forerunner of Look and Learn. No less than 40 illustrators contributed to it, and though most of the illustrations are unsigned, at least ten are signed “C.L. Doughty.” Fig.9c (p.44) shows two black and white illustrations signed by him (top right & middle left) and Fig.9d (p.76) two coloured (top & bottom.)
Next came The Bird of Gold by Hoole Jackson published in London in 1956. Its dust–jacket is shown in Fig.10a and its frontispiece with title–page (curiously mis–naming Charles Doughty as illustrator) in Fig.10b. At the bottom right of the dust–jacket is the easily missed signature Doughty (enlarged in Fig.10c) and the frontispiece bears the signature C.L.Doughty to the lower right. Besides the frontispiece there are three other illustrations, each signed C.L. Doughty in the lower right. Another example is shown in Fig.10d (facing p.176) – the move towards adventure comic illustrations is clear.
[The images can be browsed here.]
So where does this get us as regards the Doughty Rubaiyat ? Chronologically, the Doughty Rubaiyat precedes Once in a Blue Moon, whose illustrations are so different in style to C.L. Doughty’s later magazine & comic illustrations, and yet are very definitely by him. So, one can at least more readily believe that The Rubaiyat illustrations are by him as well, especially given the DOUGHTY signature in Figs.7b & 8b, which there occur in books with C.L. Doughty credited as the artist. Two unanswered question are: a) why is C. L. Doughty not named in the catalogue entry for The Illustrated Rubaiyat by the British Library, for example, and b) how did it pass under the radar of the likes of David Ashford ? The answer to the first question is possibly as simple as that the illustrator wasn’t named on the title–page. As for the second, that is more difficult. Certainly Ashford was more concerned with comics than books, and seems not to have known about Once in a Blue Moon when he did his 2005 article, whereas he included it in his 2012 one, saying of it simply that, “His earliest book seems to have been ‘Once in a Blue Moon’, a fantasy tale for children written by Margaret Gibbs and published by Hollis and Carter in 1948.” That “seems to have been” suggests that he wasn’t sure, and since he died in 2021, it is no longer possible to ask him.
Nevertheless, though it is theoretically possible that the artist was a Doughty who didn’t feature in the 1939 Register for some reason, and who signed his work DOUGHTY, I really think that C. L. Doughty is our man, especially given Chris Doughty’s comments quoted above. Recalling Omar’s eyes in Figs.2e & 2f, I was struck by the similarity of the eyes of the doomed Bill Sikes in one of C.L. Doughty’s illustrations for Oliver Twist (Fig.11) which he did for No.1 of the comic–strip series “A Classic in Pictures” in 1949. Do the eyes have it ? I leave readers to make up their own minds.
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Postscript
At some stage during the print–run a rather strange fault seems to have developed: Fig.2d (from the copy in the British Library) became Fig.12a (from my own copy), with what looks like a bandage passing from Omar’s right shoulder, and diagonally downwards to the base of the picture. What is strange is that the ‘bandage’ passes BEHIND the young woman’s right arm! The image in Fig.12b, which is from a copy in the collection of Roger Paas, seems to represent an intermediate stage between Fig.2d & Fig.12a, the upper part of the ‘bandage’ showing up as a faint cloudy trail.
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I must thank Chris Doughty for supplying much information about his father, and for checking over the details of the biographical section in particular. I must also thank Fred Diba, Joe Howard, Sandra Mason & Bill Martin, and Roger Paas both for proof reading the article and for making a number of valuable observations on C.L. Doughty’s Rubaiyat illustrations.
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