Volume 27, Number 21 & 22 · January 22, 1981
Master of Letters
By John Russell
The Letters of Edward FitzGerald, Vol. I, 1830-1850
edited by Alfred McKinley Terhune, edited by Annabelle Burdick Terhune
Princeton University Press, Vol. IV, 1877-1883, 653 pp., $75.00 (two-volume set)
Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883) is in all the histories of English literature, and in every Dictionary of Quotations, as the translator of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. That apart, he has not a universal name. Nor did he crave one. When he published his scanty writings, he did it anonymously and in tiny editions. For much of his life he led an inconspicuous existence in one of the least spectacular parts of England. By his own account, he went nowhere, saw no one, and did nothing. He was a quiet man in a quiet place, and it suited him.
Review, 4177 words
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