A “legendary book” known as “The Book Wonderful” and “regarded by many bookbinders as one of the greatest modern bindings in the world — but haunted by tragedy and disaster,” has been presented to the British Library, reports Maev Kennedy in a story for The Guardian. The book is a special edition of Omar Khayyam‘s Rubaiyat, translated by Edward Fitzgerald in an extraordinary edition with a cover consisting of “5,000 pieces of inlaid leather, ivory, silver and ebony, 600 sheets of 22&#$150;carat gold leaf, and 1,052 garnets, turquoises, topazes, olivines and an emerald.” But a glimpse at its history takes the luster off those gems: The orignal copy ” took two years to make, and sank with the Titanic in 1912. Its creator, Francis Sangorski, drowned in a bathing accident off Selsey Bill six weeks later. The second copy took Stanley Bray six years to recreate from Sangorski’s original drawings, and was destroyed in the London Blitz.”