The fate of the Sangorski Omar 1

The Great Omar*

Found in an offprint from Piccadilly Notes (circa 1930) this article about (possibly) the most lavish binding the world had ever seen. The magazine billed itself as 'an occasional  publication devoted to books, engravings and autographs.' it was edited by J.H. Stonehouse and this article is by him…

It was in 1907 that I first met Sangorski, when he brought a letter of introduction from a church dignitary, and asked to be allowed to show me a lectern bible which the Archbishop of Canterbury had commissioned his firm to bind, previous to its presentation by King Edward VII to the United States in commemoration of the tercentenary of the established church in America. I recognised at once the justice of his contention that there was something more in the design and execution of the work than was usually to be found in an ordinary piece of commercial binding and that the appreciation of it which had been expressed in the press was fully justified.

Sangorski ...showed me other specimens of his work, nearly all of which were set in jewels, each tending to become more ambitious and elaborate than the last, whilst I also began to be influenced by his extraordinary personality, dynamic energy and enthusiasm for his work. Omar Khayyam was his favourite book for binding,

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.