This volume of essays is based on a conference held in July 2009 at Trinity College, Cambridge to celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of Edward FitzGerald (1809) and the 150th anniversary of the first publication of his ‘Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám’ (1859). The ‘Rubáiyát’, loosely based on the verses attributed to the eleventh-century Persian writer, Omar Khayyám, has become one of the most widely known poems in the world, republished virtually every year from 1879 (the year of FitzGerald’s fourth edition) to the present day, and translated into over eighty different languages. And yet, with a few exceptions, it has been systematically ignored or at best patronized by the academic establishment. This volume sets out to explore the reasons for both the popularity and the neglect. Broadly speaking, the essays are divided into two main blocks. The first six chapters focus primarily on the poem’s literary qualities (including consideration of its place in the tradition of verse translation into English, the idea of ‘nothingness’, and ‘syntax and sexuality’), the last five on aspects of its reception (including essays on the late-Victorian Omar Khayyám Club, on American parodies, and on the many illustrated editions). They are linked by three essays that address key ‘facilitators’ in the poem’s transmission (including the significant but neglected issue of cheap reprints)

Preface; Notes on Contributors; List of Illustrations; Introduction – Adrian Poole; 1. Edward FitzGerald, Omar Khayyám, and the Tradition of Verse Translation into English – Dick Davis; 2. Much Ado about Nothing in the Rubáiyát – Daniel Karlin; 3. Common and Queer: Syntax and Sexuality in the Rubáiyát – Erik Gray; 4. A Victorian Poem: Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám – Clive Wilmer; 5. FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát and Agnosticism – Marta Simidchieva; 6. The Similar Lives and Different Destinies of Thomas Gray, Edward FitzGerald and A. E. Housman – Anthony Briggs; 7. The Second (1862 Pirate) Edition of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám – John Drew; 8. Edward Heron-Allen: A Polymath’s Approach to FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám – Garry Garrard; 9. ‘Under Omar’s subtle spell’: American Reprint Publishers and the Omar Craze – John Roger Paas; 10. The Imagined Elites of the Omar Khayyám Club – Michelle Kaiserlian; 11. Le Gallienne’s Paraphrase and the Limits of Translation – Adam Talib; 12. ‘Some for the Glories of the Sole’: The Rubáiyát and FitzGerald’s Sceptical American Parodists – Annmarie S. Drury; 13. The Vogue of English Rubáiyát and Dedicatory Poems in Honour of Khayyám and FitzGerald – Parvin Loloi; 14. The Illustration of FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát and its Contribution to Enduring Popularity – William H. Martin and Sandra Mason.