The Freeman Rubaiyat Part 1.

"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always
be attended by a bodyguard of lies."
...Churchill...

When you review all of the information regarding what has become known as the Freeman Rubaiyat', there are more than a few inconsistencies to be found.

To begin at the beginning, here's a transcription of the article from the News about the book that was published before the book was found:

This article was published on 21st July 1949

Here's the link for the article:  https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/130264202/11111689#

Although police realise they are acting on a mlIlion to one chance, a search for a book with a torn page which may throw some light on the Somerton body mystery is continuing throughout Australia.

A torn page of Fitzgerald's translation of the "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" was found in the pocket of the victim.

Det.-Sgt. Leane and Det. Brown believe the torn book may still be on the shelves of a library They think that if

they can find it, they can trace the man to the city or town he was in before he came to Adelaide With this information, it may be possible to establish his identity Melbourne police nave made a 'search of public libraries and libraries in Victorian provincial towns, but have failed to find the torn' volume Although a number ot city and suburtan libraries have been checked here, others in country districts have not vet been investigated. The cause of death will probably never be known. A plaster cast of the victim's head and shoulders, which was exhibited at the inquest, is now in a store room at Adelaide Museum. No request for it to be displayed has yet been made by the authorities.

NEXT

This article was posted on 23rd July 1949

Here's the image below from the Press article showing the torn page and here's the link:

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/130266390 searchTerm=Book%20Found%20Body%20Clue#

Here's the text of the article in the News dated 23rd July 1949:

TODAY'S PICTURE of the book "Omar Khayyam" (top) found last November in the back seat of a car which had been left parked in Jetty road, Glenelg. The last line in the book has been torn out. BELOW—The fragment of paper found in the clothing of the Somerton victim which may have been torn from the hook.

A copy of the "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" with a torn page which has been sought by police throughout Australia in the hope that it might pro-vide the missing clue to the identity of the mystery Somerton body, has been found in Adelaide.

Last night an Adelaide businessman read of the search in "The News" and recalled that in November he had found a copy of the book which had been thrown on the back seat of his car while it was parked in Jetty road, Glenelg. The book, the last page of which is torn, has been handed to police. If scientific tests, to be con-ducted next week, show the scrap of paper found on the dead man's clothing had been taken from the book, police will have brought off a million-to-one chance. On December 1, when the body of the mystery man was

found on Somerton beach, police discovered that the name tags had been cut from the clothing and all he had in his pockets was a train ticket, a bus ticket, and a neatly trimmed piece of paper with the printed words "Taman Shud." Investigators found that these words had been used by Omar Khayyam at the end of his verses and meant "the end" or "the finish." A study of the printing indi-cated that the words might have been torn from a copy of Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam. In the belief that if the book could be found it might show the movements of the man be-fore his death, police through-out Australia have been looking for it. The finder of the book today handed it to Det.-Sgt. R. L. Leane. On the last page the words "Taman Shud" had been torn out. On the back of the book are several telephone numbers and a series of capital letters, writ-ten in pencil, the meaning of which have not yet been deciphered. As the scrap of paper found on the dead man had been trimmed, police were unable to identify the book merely by fitting it into the torn page. Proof will now rest with tests on the paper and the print.

NOTE: It is thought that the image showing the torn-out page was arranged and taken by a photographer from the News. This raises the question was it really the book handed in to the Police?

NEXT:

This article was published on the 26th July 1949

Here's the Trove Link for the third article in the set:

: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/130270026# 

Here's the text from the article:

Body Mystery Deepens Phone Number Found on the cover of Book

The Somerton body mystery deepened today with the discovery of an Adelaide woman's telephone number on the cover of a book linked with the case.

'A fragment found in the victim's clothing is believed to have come from the book "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam." Police have discovered also that the woman gave a similar copy of the book to an Army lieutenant in Sydney about three and a half years ago, and that the lieutenant later tried to contact her in Melbourne when she wrote back saying she was now married. Police have also discovered that the Somerton body was found within a quarter of a mile of the woman's home. Today, police in Melbourne and Sydney are checking on missing people to see if the Army lieutenant is among them. Det.-Sgt. R. L. Leane yesterday obtained the opinion of authority that the piece of paper bearing the words "Tamam Shud" was of the same texture and color as that of the book handed to police on Saturday The book had been thrown into the back seat of a motor car in Jetty road, Glenelg, shortly before the victim's body was found on the beach at Somerton on December 1. Woman's Story All efforts yesterday to obtain a similar copy of the book from city bookshops failed. If police could obtain a similar copy, they would be able to check on the print used in the words "Tamam Shud." The woman whose telephone number appears in pencil on the cover of the book told police that when she was nursing at North Shore Hospital in Sydney about three and a half years ago, she gave a similar copy to a lieutenant who served in the Water Transport section of the Army. Later, she said, the lieutenant wrote to her mother's home in Melbourne. She replied to his letter, telling him she was married. Subsequently, the woman told police, she and her husband settled in Adelaide. Last year a man called at the house of a neighbor, inquiring for a nurse he once knew.

This afternoon the woman is being shown the plaster cast of the Somerton victim, which is now in a storeroom at Adelaide Museum. Acting on the possibility that the "Rubaiyat" in their possession did belong to the lieutenant, police set out to decipher a number of block letters penciled on the back of the book. Although the lettering was faint, police managed to read it by using ultraviolet light. In the belief that the letter-ing might be a code, a copy has been sent to decoding experts at Army Headquarters, Mel-bourne.

POLICE are looking for anyone who has an exact copy of the book "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam." It was published in New Zealand by Whitcombe and Toombs.

This is the image that was published in the article. It does not specify where that image came from. In particular, it does not say that this is the book handed to the Police. Nitpicking? Maybe but not without cause.

Here's the first questionable item. If as the article says they were looking for the book and published a cover it suggests the book had not been recovered, how did they know that it had been published by Whitcomb and Toombs? It could of course be a misstep in publishing. dates

On the face of it, it seems that the torn slip of paper resulted in the identification of the book as being published by Whitcomb and Toombs. But was it? The next post has a few surprises.