TESTING TIMES: THE FREEMAN BOOK WAS A COLLINS VERSION

( Note the 'laid' vertical lines present only on the Collins Rubaiyat and not the Whitcomb and Tombs Version)

The Freeman Rubaiyat Edition:

Collins, Not Whitcombe & Tombs

For closing in on 80 years the book handed to South Australia Police ion July 23rd 1949, the copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam from which the "Tamam Shud" slip was torn, has been described as a 1941 Whitcombe & Tombs, a New Zealand publisher with an Australian presence, Coutage and Freindhip edition. That description is repeated in newspapers, on Wikipedia, in the University of Adelaide code-cracking projects and in Professor Derek Abbott's public statements.

Having throughly re-examined the primary evidence, I am confident that the previous descriptions are wrong. The evidence shows the Freeman Rubaiyat was a Collins edition as was clealy stated by Detective Brown in his statement at the 1949 Inquest.

Where the Whitcombe & Tombs claim comes from

I have searched deeply for some time to see if I coiuld fine a police statement or record identifying the Freeman book as a Whitcombe & Tombs edition. I have found none.

The attribution appears to rest on a single item: a press photograph from the time showing a faded front cover of a Whitcombe & Tombs Courage and Friendship version. That photograph has never been shown to be of the Freeman book itself rather than a comparison copy for public concumption but not evidentiary in nature. On earlier measurements that I have taken here and published, its dimensions and aspect ratio do not match the Whitcombe & Tombs collector copy.

The "1941" date is weaker still. The Rubaiyat bibliographer Bob Forrest has shown that the Courage and Friendship Rubaiyat was issued in two versions, the first in 1941 and the second probably in 1945. Neither version, nor any of their reprints, carried a date. Even within the Whitcombe & Tombs narrative, 1941 is a first-publication date for the series, not evidence of when any particular copy was printed.

What Detective Brown said

Detective Len Brown gave evidence at the 1949 inquest on the torn slip found in the dead man's fob pocket, and about how he traced the book it came from. At the inquest he identified that book as a Collins edition. He described it as containing two of FitzGerald's translations, the 1859 first edition and the 1868 second edition. He also stated that the slip carried printed words on its reverse.

The slip is the physical link. Police matched it by its torn edge to the book Mr Freeman handed in. Whatever edition the slip came from, the Freeman book was the same edition.

If you look carefully at this image, in the background, apart from the printed words on the verso you should also be able to make out the faint but visible vertical and horizontal lines typical of the 'Laid' paper processing method which was not used in the Whitcomb and Tombs version

The physical comparison

I have a copy of the Collins edition, it was published in the mid 1930s. It matches Brown's description on every point I can test:

• It contains both the 1859 and 1868 FitzGerald texts. The Whitcombe & Tombs booklet contains only the 1859 text.
• The placement of the words "Tamám Shud" on the final page of the first edition verse 75, matches Brown's account. The Whitcombe & Tombs print layout is entirely different.
• Backlit, the "Tamám Shud" page shows printed text through from the reverse, consistent with Brown's statement that the slip had words on its verso.
• The aspect ratio of the code page, as released by police, matches the Collins page dimensions.

The timeline

The police appeal for the book was made on 22nd July 1949, Mr Freeman handed in his copy on 23 July 1949. Some online commentary incorrectly places these events on different dates and treats Brown's Collins as merely a reference copy.  Brown's evidence identifies the edition the slip came from, and the slip was matched to the Freeman book.

The critical nature of the discovery

For years, University of Adelaide student groups tested whether the code was built from the Rubaiyat, as a one-time pad or as initial letters drawn from the poem. As far as the published reports show, that work used the 1859 first-edition text. The Collins volume also contains the 1868 second edition, with its different wording and expanded quatrains, 110 as aopposed to 75. I can find no record of the code being tested against that second edition text, nor against any method based on page, line or word position in the Collins layout. That latter point is important due to the printers layout of the verses on specific pages.

If the book was a Collins edition, a significant part of the testing ground has never been examined and the evidence points to it being a Collins edition

What others have concluded

Neither Cipher Mysteries nor Professor Abbott has reached this different conclusion on the evidence, because neither appears to have examined it. Nick Pelling's 2016 view was that the book was very probably the cheap Courage and Friendship booklet style, while acknowledging the edition could not be dated. Professor Abbott has consistently stated the 1941 Whitcombe & Tombs attribution without citing a source for it.

Work in progress

One further line of evidence is under examination: the paper itself. The Collins edition was printed on laid paper, which carries characteristic parallel lines, and the police image of the code page shows parallel lines as seen in the header image. The code page was the 'back leaf; of the book, and it was missing according to a Police internal report. 

Summary

• No primary police record identifies the Freeman book as Whitcombe & Tombs.
• Detective Brown traced the slip to a Collins edition containing the 1859 and 1868 texts, with printed words on the slip's reverse.
• The Collins edition matches that description; the Whitcombe & Tombs booklet does not.
• The code has not been tested against the 1868 text or the Collins layout.

The full analysis, with images, will feature on our soon to be launched YouTube channel.

Gordon Cramer

The Tamam Shud blog is dedicated to uncovering the forensic realities of the Somerton Man case. Our mission is not to speculate, but to reconstruct the events of 1948 using primary documents, scientific modelling, and expert analysis. While the man's true identity may remain a mystery, our focus is on the evidence that reveals how he died and the networks involved. To ensure the integrity of this research, we rely solely on verifiable sources and citations, strictly excluding anonymous blog comments and forum speculation from our data.