The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Omar Khayyam was a Persian mathematician, astronomer and philosopher who was not known as a poet in his lifetime. Later a body of quatrains became attached to his name, although not all were his work. These verses lay in obscurity until 1859, when Edward FitzGerald (1809 – 1883), an English country gentleman, published a free adaption of this Persian poetry.