The 150th anniversary of Edward FitzGerald's translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám fell in 2009. Moreover the translator was born 200 years previously, on March 31st, 1809. This double anniversary was marked with a number of festivities and events in Iran, Dubai, United Kingdom, the Netherlands and the United States of America. It is obvious that Omar Khayyám has not been forgotten, and neither has Edward FitzGerald. Indeed, no poet has ever enjoyed such long-lasting and worldwide fame as Omar Khayyám. His verses have been translated and reprinted repeatedly, in almost every country and language of the world. Since 1900, not one year has passed without at least one new edition or reprint of his quatrains. Usually these are simple publications, but there have also been a considerable number of rare, exquisite and precious editions. However, no one knows their exact number, and the claim that the rubáiyát have been translated into every language of the world cannot be taken very seriously.

The last effort to list what had been published was a bibliography by A.G. Pott er, in 1929. Today, eighty years later, the 2009 celebration year off ers an excellent opportunity to present a new survey, again in the form of a bibliography, of a major part of the editions and translations that have appeared since 1929.

In fact this new survey is the result of a 25-years long pre-occupation, if not obsession, with collecting and recording editions of the Rubáiyát and related material. My interest was aroused by a translation by one of the greatest Dutch poets, Jan Hendrik Leopold (1865-1925). The quatrain quoted below is nr. XIII in a selection of quatrains ‘Uit de Rubaijat’, first published in De nieuwe gids (1911), and based on translations by E.H. Whinfi eld and F. Rosen.

Soon I discovered FitzGerald's translation, quite different from Leopold’s, but even more enchanting and oppressive at the same time, and in a strange way providing solace: don't worry, life is only here and now.