FitzGerald’s “Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám” Reconsidered

Abstract

The subtitle and “unifying theme” of this book, as its preface states, is “Popularity and Neglect,” referring to the decline in interest over the years in FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, especially by “the academic community” but also generally. After reading this informative and eclectic collection of essays, my sense is that a more apt caption would have been its inversion: say “From Neglect to Popularity,” as that is the course covered here and in a developed and comprehensive way, including notes and bibliography, that makes this well-edited work one that no FitzGerald enthusiast or university library should be without.