The Shahnameh

Shahnamé (Persian for "The Book of Kings") is an enormous poetic opus written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi around 1000 AD and is the national epic of the Persian-speaking world. The Shahnameh tells the mythical and historical past of (Greater) Iran from the creation of the world up until the Islamic conquest of Persia in the 7th century. James Atkinson (1780-1852) was a surgeon, artist and Persian scholar. This translation, abridged in prose and verse, won the gold medal of the Oriental Translation Fund.