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Edward FitzGerald or Fitzgerald[1] (31 March 1809 – 14 June 1883) was an English poet and writer. His most famous poem is the first and best known English translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, which has kept its reputation and popularity since the 1860s.

Edward FitzGerald was born Edward Purcell at Bredfield House in Bredfield, some two miles north of Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, in 1809. In 1818, his father, John Purcell, assumed the name and arms of his wife's family, the FitzGeralds. His elder brother John used the surname Purcell-Fitzgerald from 1858.

The change of family name occurred shortly after FitzGerald's mother inherited a second fortune. She had previously inherited over half a million pounds from an aunt, but in 1818, her father died and left her considerably more than that. The FitzGeralds were one of the wealthiest families in England. Edward FitzGerald later commented that all of his relatives were mad; further, that he was insane as well, but was at least aware of the fact.

In 1816, the family moved to France, and lived in St Germain as well as Paris, but in 1818, after the death of his maternal grandfather, the family had to return to England. In 1821, Edward was sent to King Edward VI School, Bury St Edmunds. In 1826, he went on to Trinity College, Cambridge. He became acquainted with William Makepeace Thackeray and William Hepworth Thompson.Though he had many friends who were members of the Cambridge Apostles, most notably Alfred Tennyson, FitzGerald himself was never offered an invitation to this famous group.[citation needed] In 1830, FitzGerald left for Paris, but in 1831 was living in a farmhouse on the battlefield of Naseby.

Needing no employment, FitzGerald moved to his native Suffolk, where he lived quietly, never leaving the county for more than a week or two while he resided there. Until 1835, the FitzGeralds lived in Wherstead, then moved until 1853 to a cottage in the grounds of Boulge Hall, near Woodbridge, to which his parents had moved. In 1860, he again moved with his family to Farlingay Hall, where they stayed until in 1873. Their final move was to Woodbridge itself, where FitzGerald resided at his own house close by, called Little Grange. During most of this time, FitzGerald was preoccupied with flowers, music and literature. Friends like Tennyson and Thackeray had surpassed him in the field of literature, and for a long time FitzGerald showed no intention of emulating their literary success. In 1851, he published his first book, Euphranor, a Platonic dialogue, born of memories of the old happy life in Cambridge. This was followed in 1852 by the publication of Polonius, a collection of "saws and modern instances," some of them his own, the rest borrowed from the less familiar English classics. FitzGerald began the study of Spanish poetry in 1850 at Elmsett, followed by Persian literature at the University of Oxford with Professor Edward Byles Cowell in 1853.

FitzGerald married Lucy, daughter of the Quaker poet Bernard Barton, in Chichester on 4 November 1856, after a death-bed promise to Bernard made in 1849 to look after her. The marriage was unhappy and the couple separated after only a few months,[6] despite having known each other for many years and collaborated on a book about her father's works in 1849.

Little was known of FitzGerald personally until his close friend and literary executor W. Aldis Wright, published his three-volume Letters and Literary Remains in 1889 and the Letters to Fanny Kemble in 1895. These letters reveal that FitzGerald was a witty, picturesque, and sympathetic letter writer.The late 19th-century English novelist George Gissing found them interesting enough to read the three-volume collection twice, in 1890 and 1896. This included some of Fitzgerald's letters to Fanny Kemble. Gissing also read the 1895 volume of letters in December of that year.FitzGerald was unobtrusive personally, but in the 1890s, his distinctive individuality gradually gained a broad influence over English belles-lettres.

FitzGerald's emotional life was complex. He was extremely close to many friends, among them William Browne, who was 16 when they met. Browne's tragically early death in a horse-riding accident was a catastrophe for FitzGerald. Later, FitzGerald became close to a fisherman named Joseph Fletcher, with whom he had bought a herring boat.[] While it appears there are no contemporary sources on the matter, a number of present-day academics and journalists believe FitzGerald to have been a homosexual.[12] With Professor Daniel Karlin writing in his introduction to the 2009 edition of Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám that "His [FitzGerald] homoerotic feelings (...) were probably unclear to him, at least in the form conveyed by our word 'gay'",[] it is unclear whether FitzGerald himself ever identified himself as a homosexual or acknowledged himself to be one.

FitzGerald grew disenchanted with Christianity and eventually ceased to attend church.[] This drew the attention of the local pastor, who stopped by. FitzGerald reportedly told him that his decision to absent himself was the fruit of long and hard meditation. When the pastor protested, FitzGerald showed him the door and said, "Sir, you might have conceived that a man does not come to my years of life without thinking much of these things. I believe I may say that I have reflected [on] them fully as much as yourself. You need not repeat this visit."

The 1908 book Edward Fitzgerald and "Posh": Herring Merchants (Including letters from E. Fitzgerald to J. Fletcher) recounts the friendship of Fitzgerald with Joseph Fletcher (born June 1838), nicknamed "Posh", who was still living when James Blyth started researching for the book.Posh is also often present in Fitzgerald's letters. Documentary data about the Fitzgerald–Posh partnership are available at the Port of Lowestoft Research Society. Posh died at Mutford Union workhouse, near Lowestoft, on 7 September 1915, at the age of 76.

Fitzgerald was termed "almost vegetarian", as he ate meat only in other people's houses. His biographer Thomas Wright noted that "though never a strict vegetarian, his diet was mainly bread and fruit."[18] Several years before his death, FitzGerald said of his diet, "Tea, pure and simple, with bread-and-butter, is the only meal I do care to join in."

Courtesy-wikipedia
- Fitzgerald Edward

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