The Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas, has one of the largest collections of Rubaiyat-related materials in the world. But there is one book it doesn’t have: The Great Omar, a specially crafted edition whose covers are embedded with 1,050 jewels. This dryly informative video delivers quite a jolt when the fate of  this unique book and the man who made it are revealed.

Elihu Vedder, an American artist, was the first illustrator of the Rubaiyat.