The Literary Cranks of London - Omar Khayyam Club

We could find no further copies of  the 1894 London journal The Sketch which in that year was running a series 'The literary cranks of London.' However the 1899 publication The Book of Omar and Rubaiyat has an essay on the Omar Khayyam Club entitled 'The literary cranks of London' by 'A Member' which is almost certainly reprinted from the series. The book shows a menu card for the society designed by the PRB artist Simeon Solomon. The other club in the series was 'The Johnson Club' - there were possibly more.
Mention is made here of 'The Ghouls' which may pay further investigation... Of the many societies that flourished then the Omar Khayyam is one of the few to have survived and still meets. There is also an American chapter.

THE OMAR KHAYYAM CLUB 

By A MEMBER 

The literary cranks of London are as the sand of 

the sea-shore for number, and yet they have 

rather diminished than increased during the last few 

years. The Wordsworth Society no longer collects 

archbishops and bishops and learned professors in the 

Jerusalem Chamber to solve the mystery of existence 

under the guidance of the great poet of Rydal, and one 

is rather dubious as to whether the Goethe Society has 

much to say for itself to-day, although in its time it 

has crammed the Westminster Town Hall with enthu- 

siastic lovers of German literature. The Shelley Society 

one only hears of from time to time by its ghastly bur- 

den of debt, a state which perhaps reflects the right 

kind of glory upon its great hero, whose aptitude for 

making paper boats out of Bank of England notes, if 

apocryphal, is, at any rate, a fair exemplification of his 

capacity for getting rid of money. And as to the 

Browning Society, with its blue-spectacled ladies, deep 

in the mysteries of Sordello, if the cash balance, 

which is said at Girton to have been expended in 

sweetmeats, had any existence, at the London centre, 

one knows not what confectioner at the West End 

has reaped the benefit.
There are, however, some 

fairly flourishing organizations at this moment. One 

of them is the "Sette of Odd Volumes," another 

the Johnson Club, to say nothing of the "Vaga- 

bonds," the " Ghouls," and the latest comer, the Omar 

Khayyam Club. 

This society was formed in an informal way 

without any desire to attract public attention. We 

were simply bent upon making an occasion, once a 

quarter, to eat a dinner, to gratify our own feelings of 

companionship and to gratify further our intense ap- 

preciation of Edward FitzGerald's famous quatrains. 

Not one of the original members of the society — and 

there were seven or eight of them — had any knowledge 

of Persian, and it was not at all with the famous poet 

of Persia, as he is known to the great scholars of our 

time, that we concerned ourselves — it was only that 

poet as interpreted by Edward FitzGerald with his 

wonderful interpretation of life as understood by a 

great number of people at the present day. The 

society was practically started by three men, all of 

whom talked it over together for a very long time 

beforehand ; one of these was our indefatigable secre- 

tary, Mr. Frederick Hudson. As I have said, there 

were some eight of us who first agreed to form this 

club, and we each invited one or two guests to the 

first dinner ; one of the eight, Mr. Arthur Hacker, the 

well-known artist, made us a menu card, and Mr. 

Hacker was good enough to introduce to the society 

Mr. Solomon and Mr. Shannon, two brother-artists, 

who each in turn has been victimized to the extent of 

a menu card. Mr. Justin Huntly McCarthy came 

as a guest, and I mention this because an absurd 

statement got abroad that he was the founder of the 

Omar Khayyam Club ; we, however, were very glad 

to have Mr. McCarthy, because he has done some ex- 

cellent work in the vein of Edward FitzGerald, and 

because, also, he has himself made a translation of 

Omar, which is the delight of every book collector on 

account of its curious type and other bibliographical

eccentricities. Mr. McCarthy was elected our first 

chairman, and we added a very considerable number 

of members to the society, which, it was arranged, 

should not exceed fifty-nine, this number having no 

more erudite significance than the fact that it was in 

the year 1859 that Edward FitzGerald published his 

famous translation or paraphrase. 

Among the guests of the club — many of whom 

have since become members — one may mention Mr. 

Edward Clodd, Mr. Edmund Gosse, Mr. Sidney Low 

(editor of the St. James Gazette), Judge Keene, 

whose Persian studies have carried him very much 

into the regions of FitzGerald's original, and several 

other well-known men in literature and art. The 

most dramatic incident in connection with the club 

has already been fully stated in the press: this was 

the visit of certain of our members to FitzGerald's 

grave at Boulge, near Woodbridge. 

As I am putting on record for all time the 

account of the origin of a club which is likely to 

last longer than some of the cranks which have been 

mentioned, I may as well recapitulate the story of

that visit. Some years ago Mr. William Simpson 

was travelling in Persia with the Afghan Boundary 

Commission as special artist of the Illustrated London 

News, Mr. Simpson, an enthusiastic Omar Khay- 

yamite, and one of our earliest members, bethought 

himself of a pilgrimage to Omar's tomb, and with a 

single companion, rode some miles to the spot where 

the great Persian is buried at Naishapur. He found 

one of the wishes of Omar singularly realised — the 

wish that rose-leaves should twine about his tomb — 

and he brought back with him some seed of those 

very rose-bushes, which was sent to Mr. Thiselton- 

Dyer at Kew Gardens, and there duly cultivated. 

For some time — long before the Omar Club was 

thought of — it was a pet project with Mr. Edward 

Clodd and Mr. Simpson that the rose-bushes which 

should grow at Kew from the seed culled on Omar's 

tomb should be transplanted to FitzGerald's grave. 

But the existence of a society gave special facilities 

for carrying out this project, and our visit to Boulge, 

with its accompanying ceremonial (sanctioned, it may 

be said, by the executors of Edward FitzGerald), is 

now matter of literary history. Let that pass ; 

suffice to say, without having any ambition to be 

known to the public, or, indeed, to concern our- 

selves with the outside world, we are going to settle 

down in the future in a quiet sort of way to this 

quarterly dinner of a few good friends and comrades. 

Perhaps our spirit could not be better exemplified 

than in the letter which Mr. Theodore Watts, the 

eminent poet and critic, wrote to the Secretary on 

the occasion of our last dinner ; I trust he will par- 

don me for reproducing his letter, and I cannot in 

any better way conclude what little there is to be 

said on the subject — 

"Although I am compelled to forego the great 

pleasure of dining with you on Friday," writes Mr. 

Watts, " I must not miss the opportunity of telling 

you how entirely I admire, and aspire to be in sym- 

pathy with, what I am sure must be the temper of 

an Omar Khayyam Club. The King of the Wise 

was, first and foremost, a good fellow, as every line 

of his poems shows ; so was old Fitz, the greatest 

man, save Nelson, that has been produced even by 

East Anglia, and I must say that I never came across 

a genuine, thoroughgoing disciple of the Master who 

was not a good fellow. No mean and ill-conditioned 

man could possibly enjoy the philosophy of the 

Rubaiyat. Now, as I myself would far rather have 

the character of a good fellow among good fellows 

than the character of a man of genius, what I have said 

above is meant for high praise of your club. And 

no one could possibly have taken more interest
in thelate charming ceremony got up by my 
friends E C and C S than I did, and I hope when
you print an account of it you will not forget to
send me a copy, as I want to read certain verses 
by McCarthy (another and still older friend) which,
I hear, have appeared somewhere, but I cannot 

discover where."