ABSTRACT
Manuscript Add. 4510(E) in the University Library at Cambridge is a cheap and unpretentious-looking notebook ‘Sold by W. Hunt, Bookseller, & Stationer, Tavern Sl. Ipswich/ The transaction evidently took place early in the summer of 1856, and the pur chaser was a young man called Edward Byles Cowell, who in later years added at the end of the volume the following in scription:
‘This is the copy which I made from my own transcript of the Bodleian MS. of ‘Omar Khayyam in Sir W. Ouseley’s Collection & gave to FitzGerald in June 1856. We were both staying at my Mother’s house at Rushmere near Ipswich, before I went to India. I read the Persian with him. (I had only recently discovered the MS. at Oxford.) This transcript first introduced Omar to his future translator. It came back to me after my friend’s death. E.B.C.’
