Percy Hetherington Fitzgerald (1834-1925) was an Anglo-Irish author and critic, painter and sculptor. He was born in Ireland at Fane Valley, County Louth, educated at Belvedere college Dublin, Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, and at Trinity College, Dublin. He was called to the Irish bar and was for a time crown prosecutor on the northeastern circuit. After moving to London, he became a contributor to Charles Dickens’s magazine, Household Words, and later dramatic critic for the Observer and the Whitehall Review. Among his many writings are numerous biographies and works relating to the history of the theatre.