The Atlas Obscura Podcast · Monday, September 28, 2026
Amanda McCowan reveals that the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, featured in the game 'Titanic: Adventure Out of Time,' is a real book with a history that might be more interesting than its connection to the Titanic. She explains that the book's story involves its transformation from a medieval Persian mathematician's work to a famous English text.
“But the more that I learned about this book and how it came about, the more I became convinced that the Titanic connection might actually be the least interesting thing about it.”
“It's a story about how a medieval Persian mathematician became one of the most famous writers in the English-speaking world. And how his most famous work wound up at the bottom of the ocean, both in real life and in this old video game that I'm obsessed with.”