Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot

Arbuthnot's early career was spent as a civil servant in India; his last post was as Collector for the Bombay government. He was named after his grandfather, Field Marshal Sir John FitzGerald. His first name is sometimes spelled "Foster".

Arbuthnot was well versed in the ancient literature of India. He collaborated with his close friend Sir Richard Burton in the translations of two Sanskrit erotic texts, the Kama Sutra of Vatsayana (1883) and The Ananga Ranga (1885), both privately printed by the Kama Shastra Society (a fictitious organisation consisting of himself and Burton, a legal device to avoid obscenity laws).Ben Grant, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3993841 "Translating/'The' “Kama Sutra”"], Third World Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 3, Connecting Cultures (2005), 509-516 He also wrote the books Arabic Authors, The Mysteries of Chronology, Early Ideas (1881, under the pseudonym Anaryan) and Sex Mythology, Including an Account of the Masculine Cross (1898, privately printed), which attempts to trace the phallic origins of religious symbols. He edited the Rawżat aṣ-ṣafāʾ (روضة الصفا, ‘garden of purity’) by Mīr-Khvānd, translated by the Orientalist Edward Rehatsek from 1891 to 1894.

It is largely due to his work that several of the masterpieces of Arabic, Persian and Indian literature first became available in English translation.

• {{Cite book|display-authors=0 |last=Arbuthnot |first=Forster Fitzgerald |author-link=Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot |title=Early Ideas : A Group of Hindoo Stories |publisher=W. H. Allen and Co. | location=London |year=1881 |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924023157393 |oclc=1080679008}}
• {{Cite book|display-authors=0 |last=Arbuthnot |first=Forster Fitzgerald |author-link=Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot |title=Free Trade in Land |publisher=Cassell & Company |location=London |year=1885 |url=https://archive.org/details/freetradeinland00arbu |oclc=1051491107}}
• {{Cite book|display-authors=0 |last=Arbuthnot |first=Forster Fitzgerald |author-link=Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot |title=Persian Portraits. A Sketch of Persian History, Literature and Politics |publisher=Bernard Quaritch |location=London |year=1887 |url=https://archive.org/details/persianportrait00arbugoog |oclc=634978922}}
• {{Cite book|display-authors=0 |last=Arbuthnot |first=Forster Fitzgerald |author-link=Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot |title=Arabic Authors; a Manual of Arabian History and Literature |publisher=William Heinemann |location=London |year=1890 |url=https://archive.org/details/arabicauthorsman00arbuuoft |oclc=1051484584}}
• {{Cite book|display-authors=0 |last=Arbuthnot |first=Forster Fitzgerald |author-link=Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot |title=The Mysteries of Chronology, with Proposal for a New English Era, to be called the Victorian |publisher=William Heinemann |location=London |year=1900 |url=https://archive.org/details/mysteriesofchron00arbuiala |oclc=1013417308}}

• {{Cite book |author=Vatsyayana |author-link=Vatsyayana |translator1-last=Arbuthnot |translator1-first=Forster Fitzgerald |translator1-link=Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot |translator2-last=Burton |translator2-first=Richard Francis |translator2-link=Richard Francis Burton |title=The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana |publisher=Kama Shastra Society |location="Cosmopoli" |year=1883 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-ElAAQAAIAAJ}}
• {{Cite book |author=Kalyāṇamalla |author-link=Kalyanamalla |translator1-last=Arbuthnot |translator1-first=Forster Fitzgerald |translator1-link=Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot |translator2-last=Burton |translator2-first=Richard Francis |translator2-link=Richard Francis Burton |title=Ananga-ranga (stage of the bodiless one) or, The Hindu Art of Love |publisher=Kama Shastra Society |location="Cosmopoli" |year=1885 |url=https://archive.org/details/0327725.nlm.nih.gov}}

• {{Cite book |author=Muhammad ibn Khvandshah ibn Mahmud |author-link=Mirkhvand |translator-first=Edward |translator-last=Rehatsek |translator-link=Edward Rehatsek |editor-last=Arbuthnot |editor-first=Forster Fitzgerald |editor-link=Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot |title=The Rauzat-us-safa; or, Garden of Purity |publisher=Royal Asiatic Society |location=London |year=1891–94 |oclc=473658564}} {{Internet Archive|at=no|rauzatussafaorg00unkngoog|Part 1 Vol 1}}, {{Internet Archive|at=no|dli.ernet.237960|Part 1 Vol 2}}, {{Internet Archive|at=no|dli.ernet.237962|Part 2 Vol 1}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=_FM9AAAAYAAJ Part 2 Vol 2], {{Internet Archive|at=no|dli.ministry.05585|Part 2 Vol 3}}

{{Reflist}}

• Mrs P S-M Arbuthnot Memories of the Arbuthnots (1920). George Allen & Unwin Ltd.

• {{Gutenberg author |id=8964}}
• Arbuthnot, F.F. [http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/a#a8964 Arabic Authors: A Manual of Arabian History and Literature] (Full text)
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot}}
• {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20060615021813/http://www.kittybrewster.com/members/k_1.htm Arbuthnot Family tree]}}

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Category:1833 births

Category:1901 deaths

Category:Arabic–English translators

Category:Persian–English translators

Category:Sanskrit–English translators

Category:English translators

Category:English non-fiction writers

Foster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot

Category:English orientalists

Category:Indian Civil Service (British India) officers

Category:English male non-fiction writers

Category:19th-century British translators

Category:19th-century English male writers

Category:Younger sons of baronets

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