The Life of Edward FitzGerald
The life of Edward FitzGerald translator of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám by Alfred McKinley Terhune
New Haven etc., Yale University Press, 1947
xi, 373 p.
This biography of the translator of THE RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM has been written out of more than 1,000 unpublished letters as well as diaries and notebooks. FitzGerald was an intimate of Thackeray and Tennyson and like them he represents Victorian England with its class structure, its gifted amateurs of letters and learning, its piety and paradoxes, where a devout Christian ( although beset by doubts) will have his name forever linked with the heathen Persian bard, FitzGerald was a rich, generous young man, the prankish author, with Tennyson's helpful approval, of what they hoped was the weakest line of poetry ever written:
"A Mr. Wilkinson, a clergyman";
a man who married out of a sense of obligation to a friend; who felt intensely the plight of the poor and spoke up for their rights against people like himself; who learned Persian and never got further east than Paris; and who saw his immortal translation read in all the literate English-speaking world.
FOREWORD vii
I PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE 1
II BURY ST. EDMUNDS 13
III CAMBRIDGE 20
IV THE GENTEEL GIPSY 38
V DOUBTS AND PERPLEXITIES 55
VI THACKERAY AND TENNYSON 67
VII BOULGE COTTAGE 86
VIII THE WOODBRIDGE WITS 102
IX LONDON DURING THE 'FORTIES 111
X THE COWELLS 136
XI "A VERY LAZY FELLOW" 145
XII EARLY WORKS 153
XIII SPANISH AND PERSIAN 163
XIV FINANClAL TROUBLES 178
XV THE WANDERER 185
XVI MARRIAGE 191
XVII THE ROMANCE OF "THE RUBÁIYÁT" 204
XVIII THE PERSIAN POET AND THE ENGLISH POEM 215
XIX MARKET HILL 233
XX SAILING 240
XXI WINTER QUARTERS 250
XXII FITZGERALD AND FLETCHER: HERRING MERCHANTS 267
XXIII MORE PERSIAN AND SPANISH 276
XXIV THE LAIRD OF LITTLE GRANGE 293
XXV OLD FRIENDS AND NEW 305
XXVI GREEK TRANSLATIONS AND OTHER WORKS 323
XXVII LAST YEARS 336
APPENDIX A. GENEALOGICAL TABLE 346
APPENDlX B. TRANSLATIONS FROM BÉRANGER 347
APPENDIX C. WRITINGS ASCRIBED TO FITZGERALD 354
REFERENCES 357
INDEX