With Friends Possessed: A Life of Edward Fitzgerald

by Robert Bernard Martin

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0689115571
• ISBN13: 9780689115578
• Release Date: April 1985
• Publisher: Holiday House
• Length: 313 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A fascinating biography; intelligent & sensitive

Who was Edward FitzGerald? Well, he was the man who produced "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" in the late 19th century, a very loose translation which might be described as a "Fantasy and Variations on Themes of Omar Khayyam." This small book of verse lay neglected for some years, and was even marked down to a penny a copy. Then it was discovered, sold well, and then became a rage in America, after which it became a rage in England. It is surely one of the most quoted and most beloved poems ever written in English. "A book of verse beneath the bough.." So, was FitzGerald a major poet, or a minor poet? Aside from the Khayyam, he is mostly regarded for his letters -- although I myself really like his "Bird Parliament." And who was he? He was a kindly, mild-mannered, brilliant and eccentric descendant of a family of billionaires (the Fitzgeralds counted their money in millions 130 years ago, and would probably be billionaires today). His father was related to the FitzGeralds, and he married his first cousin, a "real" FitzGerald. Daddy was weak-minded and vacillating; Mommy was imperious and loaded with money. She quickly inherited some 700,000 pounds from an aunt, and then later much more when her father died. She was MUCH richer than her husband, and she wore the pants in the family, which soon began to bore her. (You know, she reminds me exactly of the mother of a friend, who described her as "so busy being important that she had no time to be a mother.") Proud, socially ambitious, and vapid, FitzGerald's mother quickly became a symbol of everything he hated in human life. His father was hardly a man to brag about, either. The FitzGeralds intermarried furiously, and EF once remarked that all of his relatives were mad. He added that he himself was insane, of course, but had the advantage of knowing it. He wound up living for his friends. And his friends included such as Tennyson, a lifelong friend who wound up writing a poem to "Old Fitz" -- which EF did not live to read, alas. Aside from his wide circle of friends, EF had a series of much closer male friends, young men with whom he felt really close. But his innocence about these friendships indicates that he really did not know what he was up to -- perhaps until he was verging on old age, and becoming a genuine village eccentric, while the villagers gossiped about his marriage (an instant failure) and his close friendship with --- a fisherman! Perhaps then, some of the truth began to dawn on him, but we don't know. It was exactly at this point in his life that he was finishing his immortal "Rubaiyat." I have told you a lot of the story because Robert Martin has an incredible gift for bringing his characters to life. This biography is written with a fine intelligence and senstivity, and will probably be the definitive biography for many years to come.