"Omar Khayyam" faithfully and literally translated from the original Persian by John Pollen with a foreward by his Highness The Aga Khan - East and West, London - 1915 first UK edition - 18cmx15cm - condition: very good, in original binding, errata slip inserted Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm Nīsābūrī[1][3] (18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131), commonly known as Omar Khayyam (Persian: عمر خیّام),[a] was a Persian polymath, known for his contributions to mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, and poetry.[4]: 94  He was born in Nishapur, the initial capital of the Seljuk Empire, and lived during the period of the Seljuk dynasty, around the time of the First Crusade. As a mathematician, he is most notable for his work on the classification and solution of cubic equations, where he provided a geometric formulation based on the intersection of conics.[5] He also contributed to a deeper understanding of Euclid's parallel axiom.[6]: 284  As an astronomer, he calculated the duration of the solar year with remarkable precision and accuracy, and designed the Jalali calendar, a solar calendar with a very precise 33-year intercalation cycle[7]: 659  [b] which provided the basis for the Persian calendar that is still in use after nearly a millennium. There is a tradition of attributing poetry to Omar Khayyam, written in the form of quatrains (rubāʿiyāt رباعیات). This poetry became widely known to the English-reading world in a translation by Edward FitzGerald (Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 1859), which enjoyed great success in the Orientalism of the fin de siècle.