An original fictionalized biography of Omar Khayyam, a Persian poet, scientist, statesman and poet, who immortalized his name and the time in which he lived in his unsurpassed poetry. Being an astrologer at the court of the Khorasan ruler Melik Khan, Omar Khayyam managed to study astronomy, algebra, geometry and, of course, the composition of his amazing quatrains (rubai), in which philosophical depth coexisted perfectly with subtle irony, with caustic sarcasm, and with tender lyricism. What was this man like, whose poems have been read by people on all continents for centuries? What world did he live in? What kind of people surrounded him? Answering these questions in his vibrant, original book, Harold Lamb masterfully recreates the exotic atmosphere of the medieval East, where the beautiful and the terrible are fused together, where the richest cultural and humanistic traditions that dominate among the intellectual elite coexist with the religious fanaticism and habitual cruelty that exist in all other layers of society.