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In July 1856, Professor Edward Cowell sent his friend Edward Fitzgerald a Persian-language copy of poems by Omar Khayyam, the 12th century Persian poet, astronomer, and mathematician. Fitzgerald strove for three years to turn the 'essence' of these poems into English, and in 1859 published his classic free translation of the Persian Master's verse. The book was not an instant success; but the beautiful quatrains that Fitzgerald so painstakingly put together have stood the test of time, and made his work the most popular rendering of Khayyam's Rubaiyat.