At the bottom of the North Atlantic lie the remnants of one of the world’s rarest
books — a book of medieval Persian poetry called The Rubaiyat — written
by the 11th-Century scholar and astronomer Omár Khayyám.
The book was on its way to New York aboard the Titanic in 1912
after being sold at auction on March 29 for just over $2,000 US dollars. This was of course a lot
of money in 1912; it equaled about 4 times the annual income for the average worker at the time.
But $2,000 was actually less than half of the book’s $5,000 value.
Its disappointing sell price was due in large part to a national coal strike at the time,
which disrupted shipping and train schedules. Collectors were far less eager
to buy expensive antiquities when shipping and customs fees were prohibitively high.
New York Custom House officials told potential buyers of the book
that they would have to pay a 25% duty on top of the book’s $5,000 price tag.
After several buyers backed out, the book was finally sold to a
renowned antiquarian bookseller in New York named Gabriel Weis.
So what was it about this particular copy of The Rubaiyat that made it so special?
Let’s go back to 1909, three years before the Titanic set sail. It was at this time that a
London bookstore by the name of Sotheran’s purchased an 1884 edition of The Rubaiyat —
translated by English poet Edward FitzGerald and illustrated by American painter Elihu Vedder.
While commercially unsuccessful at first, FitzGerald’s translations
grew in popularity among intellectuals over the next several years — to the point that
a club dedicated to the teachings of Omar Khayyam was formed in 1892. To this day,
the Omar Khayyam Club has annual meetings in London to celebrate both Khayyam and FitzGerald.
And while the club may sound prestigious,
the media has enjoyed poking fun at it, with a New York Times editorial calling it “an absurd cult.”
After the Rubaiyat was purchased in 1909,
the new owners then commissioned two of the foremost bookbinders—George Sutcliffe and Francis
Sangorski—to bind the rare book in preparation for an exhibit honoring George V’s coronation.
The design alone for the cover took 3 months to finish—and
it would take 2 more years of meticulous craftsmanship before the binding was complete.
This New York Times article published 8 days before the Titanic sinking described the
finished product, saying:
“It is considered the most elaborate specimen of bookbinding that has ever been executed,
representing more time and thought than have ever been expended on the cover of a book before.”
All told, the book’s cover consisted of 5,000 pieces of leather, silver, ivory, and ebony
inlays — 600 sheets of 22-karat gold leaf — and was inlaid with more than 1,000 precious stones.
It was a work of art that unfortunately never made it to its new owner in 1912.
On April 10, about two weeks after being sold at auction,
the book was loaded onto the ship in Southampton. Second Officer Charles Lightoller said books
were kept in the stern of the ship, so presumably that’s where The Rubaiyat was kept.
Sadly, the stern of the Titanic was heavily damaged as it sank.
This part of the ship imploded as it spiraled toward the ocean floor,
ripping off large portions of the hull and spilling out its contents.
It’s possible the Rubaiyat was ripped out of the ship on its way to the bottom.
And if not, what’s left of the book is buried deep within the twisted wreckage of the stern,
completely inaccessible to divers.
Would you want to see the Rubaiyat brought to the surface, or should it remain with the ship?
And here's a final fun fact: The Rubaiyat is a key plot element in Titanic: Adventure Out of Time,
which was my favorite computer game as a child. In the game, the protagonist has to escape the
sinking ship with the book so that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. If you’re a Titanic fan,
I highly recommend downloading it — I think the game still holds up quite well even today.
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