Edward FitzGerald

Born in 1809 near Woodbridge, Suffolk, Edward FitzGerald was an English poet and writer whose reputation rests mainly on his version of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Britannica describes it as a very free adaptation rather than a literal translation, but its music and mood gave it a lasting place in English literature.

He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was part of a literary circle that included figures such as Alfred Tennyson. Although he wrote letters, dialogues, and other translations, he remained a private, somewhat retiring figure, more attached to friendship, books, and quiet country life than to public fame.

FitzGerald died in 1883. More than a century later, he is still remembered less as a strict translator than as a writer who remade an older Persian poem in his own voice, creating a work that many readers came to love in its own right.