The by A.G. Potter is without question a useful tool for the bibliographer, the collector or the scholar, but as Martin and Mason noticed “it is marred by a very idiosyncratic index“. This Index only refers to items listed in Part 1 and Part 2 of the Bibliography: the translations and editions of the Rubáiyát, including references to publishers and artists.
In 2017 Douglas Taylor and Bob Forrest issued an , in which they also critised the original index for not being complete and not being free of errors. This new index was extended to deal with Part 3 of Potter’s listings that contains prose, verse and parodies pertaining to the Rubáiyát. Furthermore it included a “list of duplicate entries and a few errors in Potter”, and it is this extended version that is undoubtedly a great improvement.
The Taylor/Forrest Index has the following sections:
Artists; Publishers; Translators, Editors, Commentators, Parodists etc.; Authors in periodical literature, with titles in brief; Titles of anonymous articles.
Apart from all this, the new index also provides a provisional biography of A.G. Potter, giving hitherto unknown details about his life. The document can be accessed at www.bobforrestweb.co.uk/The_Rubaiyat/N_and_Q/Potter_Index.pdf
However the chapter on “Translators, Editors, Commentators, Parodists etc.” lists all contributors involved under one heading. There is no way of knowing whether we deal with a translator, an editor or a commentator. To meet this I have split this section into separate sub-categories:
Translators
Names of translators, mainly taken from Part One in Potter’s Bibliography. Included are translator’s names in Part Three, where translations of the Rubáiyát are part of books, articles or parodies that are found in chapters IV-X.
A separate index is created for FitzGerald as translator found in Part One, section IX, and in Part Two and Part Three.
Artists
Alphabetical list of artists involved in illustrating, decorating, illuminating, embellishing of the rubáiyát.
Contributors
Alphabetical list of contributors to the rubáiyát editions and works related thereto as listed in Potter: authors of introductions, prologues and epilogues, forewords, notes and many more. In a number of instances introductions may have been published independently or as articles in journals or magazines. In that case the authors are listed under Authors.
Composers
Authors
Alphabetical list of authors taken from Part Three.
Parodists and anonymous parodies
Editors
List of editors taken from Part One, Two and Three.
Publishers and private printers