Adrian Poole is Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Christine van Ruymbeke is Soudavar Lecturer in Persian Studies at the University of Cambridge, and was formerly Lecturer at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium). William H. Martin and Sandra Mason are independent researchers with a long-standing interest in FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.

‘[“Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: A Famous Poem and Its Influence” and “FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: Popularity and Neglect”] are dual complementary works of scholarship, reflection, and academic research, in the strongest sense of the adjectives. Scholars, academics, literary critics, translators, and those who love poetry and share Khayyam’s and FitzGerald’s twofold concerns with the human lived experience of being and nonbeing will find these twin texts of much interest.’ —Erick Nakjavani, ‘Iranian Studies’

• 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; Bibliography; Index