The world's most magnificent book is also one of the unluckiest: it was lost on the Titanic, bombed and its bookbinder drowned.

But finally the jewelled binding of Persian poet Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat may have had a stroke of luck. This week it found a new home at the British Library's Treasure Gallery, where it went on public display.

The lavish cover, probably the most expensive ever produced, includes over 1000 gems, 5000 coloured inlays and more than 50 square feet of gold leaf.

English bookbinder Francis Sutcliffe, of Sangorski & Sutcliffe, took almost two years to complete the first binding in 1912.

For months he had told his friends of his dream to bind the Rubaiyat in that way, says British Library bookbinding curator Philippa Marks. It was one of the most popular books in Victorian times.

To prepare his designs, the binder studied snakes at the London Zoo and human skulls at an anatomist.

At first the book went on sale for £1,000, a fortune in those days. Yet due to an economic slump and a UK coal strike an American bought it for only £405.

It was shipped across the Atlantic on the Titanic, but was lost along with over 1,500 lives when the cruiser hit an iceberg four days into its maiden voyage.

Six weeks after finishing the Great Omar, Mr Sutcliffe also drowned in the sea at Selsey Bill, Sussex.

Stanley Bray, nephew and apprentice of the bookbinder, took on the task of recreating the firm's masterpiece. Working in his spare time from 1932 to 1939, he used the original designs, including garnets, olivines, rubies, topazes, and turquoises.

However, despite being locked up in a safe, the book was destroyed in a Second World War bombing in 1941.

Undaunted, Bray salvaged the gems that survived the blast to recreate the binding once again. But he had to wait until the age of 80, after he had left the firm, to complete the 4,000-hour task.

His widow, Irene, bequeathed the famous volume to the British Library when she died last year.

The library's bookbinding curator does not heed warnings that the Great Omar might be cursed.

"I take some comfort in the fact that this is the third version," Ms Marks said. "Maybe it is a case of third time lucky."

The design on the front cover is made up of peacocks. On the back there is a Persian mandolin made of mahogany, inlaid with silver, satinwood and ebony.

The inside of the front cover features a tree of life with a snake, while a skull forms the centerpiece of the death composition on the inside of the back cover.

And what is it worth now?

One can value the jewels and the rare illustrations by symbolist painter Elihu Vedder, Ms Marks said.

"But you can't put a price on history."