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Rob (Robert John) Shepherd.
Shepherd, Rob (Robert John). Lost on the Titanic. limited, first printing. London: Shepherds, Sangorski & Sutcliffe & Zaehnsdorf. October, 2001. hardcover. limited to 750 copies. isbn: 0954107209. scarcity: hard to find.

The story of the Great Omar, a jewelled binding of the Ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyám bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe in 1911.

From the prospectus: "this book tells the story of The Great Omar, a magnificent jewelled binding of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam that was supposedly lost when Titanic sank on her maiden voyage. The original Omar was bound by the famous Sangorski & Sutcliffe bindery in London, England and was the most ambitious commission ever undertaken by the firm already world renowned for its gorgeous bindings".

Lost on the Titanic is the story of that beautiful binding, its creation and all too brief history. To put the binding into context, there is also a brief history of the company itself, with several tipped-in color samples of other famous bindings they created. The image, shown below, is a computer generated recreation of the front cover of the original Great Omar. There are additional tipped-in color plates showing the rear cover, endleaf pages, etc., plus a number of black & white photos as well. The image shown to the left is the front cover for this book, slightly cropped as the cover was a bit too large for my scanner. It seems like a terribly uninspired binding for such a famous bindery.

Robert John Shepherd is the current owner of the firm.