Editing Thomas Moore (section)

== ''Lalla Rookh'' ==
Next to the ''Melodies'', ''[[Lalla Rookh]]'' (1817) was Moore's greatest contemporary success. In a testimony to the literary reputation his ''Melodies'' had already established, [[Longman|Longmans]], the publishers, agreed to largest advance, £3150,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rossetti |first=William |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8187/pg8187.html |title=The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore&#10;Collected by Himself with Explanatory Notes |date=2005 |publisher=The Project Gutenberg eBook |chapter=Biographical Sketch}}</ref> yet commanded by a book of verse.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Thomas Moore |url=https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10553b.htm |access-date=2025-04-29 |website=www.newadvent.org}}</ref>  

Possibly the most translated epic verses of its time,<ref name="eb2">{{cite web |date=24 May 2020 |title=Thomas Moore |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Moore |access-date=30 January 2021 |website=Encyclopedia Britannica}}</ref> the work was the basis for the [[operas]] ''Lalla-Rûkh'' (1821) by [[Gaspare Spontini]], ''[[Lalla-Roukh]]'' by [[Félicien David]] (1862), ''[[Feramors]]'' by [[Anton Rubinstein]] (1863), and ''[[The Veiled Prophet (opera)|The Veiled Prophet]]'' by [[Charles Villiers Stanford]] (1879).  One of the interpolated tales, ''[[Paradise and the Peri]]'', was interpreted in a choral-orchestral work by [[Robert Schumann]] (1843).<ref name="eb2" />

Written with the encouragement of Byron,<ref name="eb">{{cite web |date=24 May 2020 |title=Thomas Moore |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Moore |access-date=30 January 2021 |website=Encyclopedia Britannica}}</ref> and drawing on ''[[The Garden of Knowledge]]'' by [[Shaikh Inayat Allah Kamboh|Inayatullah Kamboh]] (1608–1671), it is ostensibly a  [[chivalric romance]] centred on the daughter of the of the 17th-century [[Mughal Empire|Mughal]] emperor [[Aurangzeb]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Irwin |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Irwin (writer) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bDjAzgEACAAJ |title=The Arabian Nights: A Companion |date=2010 |publisher=[[I.B. Tauris|Tauris Parke Paperbacks]] |isbn=978-1-86064-983-7 |edition=2nd |series= |location=London |page=191}}</ref> But set against the backdrop of the enduring conflict between the Mughal throne and its [[Zoroastrianism|Zoroastrian]] subjects — "a theme that had much to recommend it to an Irishman"<ref name=":3" />—scholars read it as a political allegory. Hidden references are found to the [[French Revolution]], to the United Irish [[Irish Rebellion of 1798|Rebellion of 1798]],<ref name=":0" /> and to Moore's martyred friend [[Robert Emmet]].<ref name="Kelly 2013" />