Speccing my dude as a fighter hasn't really worked out for me.... 
I can't even get close to flamelurker because he's so fast, he damages you because dudes so hot without even attacking and swinging my big claymore is just too slow and ineffective. 
I have a bow but it fires so slowly the dude just runs up on me. 
Im thinking of just trying to summon a dude and hope that he's a magic man or grinding some souls and trying to learn some magic (im soul lvl 29) but I wouldnt know where to learn spells anyway. 
 
If you can't help me fight dude normally could someone just point me in the direction of learning spells?

You need fire resistant armour and ring first off. 
http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/walk2-2-boss    
that should help otherwise

Well, the cheap (but effective) way to do it is get  a bow and about 200 arrows, then try to get him jammed on the environment. You can probably youtube this, but basically you just make sure the large bones to the left of the entrance are between you and the boss. Shouldn't be too tough.

Use magic arrow anyway.  Even if your magic stat is low, you can still do some damage to him, and far more than you'll do otherwise.

I thought you were using some new forum terminology before I saw the foum this was in.

Get a catalyst, learn magic missile, hope for the best. 
 
It helps a lot to have other people fighting with you. If you don't have any Stones of Ephemeral Eyes or just don't want to waste them, use the blue eye stone to help someone, then when you back to life you can summon other players. That also helps you come up with a good strategy on how to beat him.

I rounded up a bunch of dead scrubs, had them fight for me while I sat behind the pole in the back left of the room not getting hit by anything.

" Get a catalyst, learn magic missile, hope for the best.   It helps a lot to have other people fighting with you. If you don't have any Stones of Ephemeral Eyes or just don't want to waste them, use the blue eye stone to help someone, then when you back to life you can summon other players. That also helps you come up with a good strategy on how to beat him. "

I find him easyer with melee since you can go toe to toe with him if you keep your Purple Flame shield up constantly and you can get in a few hits after he made his attacked (you will however constantly take damage when he attacks unless you use the large brushwood shield) So you will need alot of healing items.

As a Priest I couldn't learn soul arrow so I mostly relied on dieing first...of course...then helping someone in soul mode, getting revived then vice versa; summoning two souls to hopefully do most of the work for me.

Get him stuck on the rib cage, then use your crossbow or bow or soul arrow.

Learn the fast way down and spend some time studying his patterns. He is actually one of the more dodgeable bosses in the game (*). And open to attack after. 
Use a magic type weapon.
 
If you summon a blue he is easy as pie. But you miss out on the experience of beating him alone. 
And he does not get easier in later playthroughs ;)
 
(*) I don't recommend relying on shields. They may get you through your first playthrough but eventually you will need to learn how to dodge and keep and eye on your endurance meter.. If you want fire protection, I guess you could ditch the thiefs ring for fire resistance.  And check which armor offers best resistance and still allows you to roll. (I imagine you dont have Doran's armor set yet)

I'm pleased to report that I have successfully murdered the fool 

For future reference, everybody that has recommended the Demons Souls Wiki is completely right.  I don't think there has been a better online wiki built completely by fans of a game.  Its seriously that good.  The rib cage trick definitely works, but don't use the lava bow!  Soul Arrow or regular arrows with sticky white stuff  definitely does do the trick though...
 
Edit:  congrats man!!  Now you can really mod weapons at Ed's!

After a number of failed attempts he got himself stuck on a pile of bones. Kept on hitting him through the bones until he died. 

Solo'd him with my temple knight. All you have to do is as soon as you enter the instance, walk left and you'll see a bone spine. Try to lure flame lurker to one side of it with you on the other and he will effectively get bugged...

I got stuck on this motherfucker a few months ago, but I finally beat him the other day.
 
Then I got up to Maneater.