Tagore,Rabindranath. — Gitanjali. First draft manuscript.

N.pl., Ministry of Culture, Government of India, [2012]. Various pagings. Orig. hardcover (imit. blue leather with gilt lettering). 12mo.Presented as a copy of the original handwritten manuscript. Text in English with some parallel text in Bengali, translated from the Bengali. - Published as an edition of the Tagore manuscript from the Rothenstein Collection in the Houghton Library, Harvard University. - - A special facsimile and commemorative edition from 2012, published by the Indian Ministry of Culture to mark the centenary of the English translation of 'Gitanjali (1912). The book contains a photographic reproduction (facsimile) of the handwritten manuscript in which the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore first translated his own Bengali poems into English in 1912. This is the exact first version of the handwritten text that Tagore recorded in a notebook during his sea voyage to England and showed to the painter William Rothenstein in London. Rothenstein was so impressed that he shared it with the poet W.B. Yeats, ultimately leading to the publication of 'Gitanjali: Song Offerings' and Tagore receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. As it represents the very first draft, this edition presents the poems in their purest, rawest form. It displays Tagore’s authentic handwriting, including his original word choices, crossings-out, and corrections.