George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January
1788 – 19 April 1824), known as Lord Byron,
was a British nobleman, poet, peer, politician,
and leading figure in the Romantic movement.
He is regarded as one of the greatest British
poets and remains widely read and influential.
Among his best-known works are the lengthy
narrative poems Don Juan and Childe Harold's
Pilgrimage as well as the short lyric poem
"She Walks in Beauty".
He travelled extensively across Europe, especially
in Italy, where he lived for seven years in
the cities of Venice, Ravenna and Pisa. During
his stay in Italy he frequently visited his
friend and fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Later in life Byron joined the Greek War of
Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire,
for which Greeks revere him as a national
hero. He died in 1824 at the age of 36 from
a fever contracted in Missolonghi.
Often described as the most flamboyant and
notorious of the major Romantics, Byron was
both celebrated and castigated in his life
for his aristocratic excesses, which included
huge debts, numerous love affairs with both
men and women, as well as rumours of a scandalous
liaison with his half-sister. One of his lovers,
Lady Caroline Lamb, summed him up in the famous
phrase "mad, bad, and dangerous to know".
His only legitimate child, Ada Lovelace, is
regarded as the first computer programmer
based on her notes for Charles Babbage's Analytical
Engine. Byron's illegitimate children include
Allegra Byron, who died in childhood, and
possibly Elizabeth Medora Leigh.
== Early life ==
Ethel Colburn Mayne states that George Gordon
Byron was born on 22 January 1788, in a house
on 24 Holles Street in London. His birthplace
is now occupied by a branch of the English
department store John Lewis. However, Robert
Charles Dallas in his Recollections states
that Byron was born in Dover.Byron was the
son of Captain John "Mad Jack" Byron and his
second wife, the former Catherine Gordon (d.
1811), a descendant of Cardinal Beaton and
heiress of the Gight estate in Aberdeenshire,
Scotland. Byron's father had previously seduced
the married Marchioness of Carmarthen and,
after she divorced her husband, he married
her. His treatment of her was described as
"brutal and vicious", and she died after giving
birth to two daughters, only one of whom survived,
Byron's half-sister, Augusta. To claim his
second wife's estate in Scotland, Byron's
father took the additional surname "Gordon",
becoming "John Byron Gordon", and he was occasionally
styled "John Byron Gordon of Gight." Byron
himself used this surname for a time and was
registered at school in Aberdeen as "George
Byron Gordon." At the age of 10 he inherited
the English Barony of Byron of Rochdale, becoming
"Lord Byron", and eventually dropped the double
surname.
Byron's paternal grandparents were Vice-Admiral
the Hon. John "Foulweather Jack" Byron, and
Sophia Trevanion. Vice Admiral John Byron
had circumnavigated the globe and was the
younger brother of the 5th Baron Byron, known
as "the Wicked Lord".
He was christened at St Marylebone Parish
Church as "George Gordon Byron", after his
maternal grandfather George Gordon of Gight,
a descendant of James I of Scotland, who had
committed suicide in 1779.
"Mad Jack" Byron married his second wife for
the same reason that he married his first,
her fortune. Byron's mother had to sell her
land and title to pay her new husband's debts,
and in the space of two years, the large estate,
worth some £23,500, had been squandered,
leaving the former heiress with an annual
income in trust of only £150. In a move to
avoid his creditors, Catherine accompanied
her profligate husband to France in 1786,
but returned to England at the end of 1787
to give birth to her son on English soil.
He was born on 22 January in lodgings at Holles
Street in London.
Catherine moved back to Aberdeenshire in 1790,
where Byron spent his childhood. His father
soon joined them in their lodgings in Queen
Street, but the couple quickly separated.
Catherine regularly experienced mood swings
and bouts of melancholy, which could be partly
explained by her husband's continuingly borrowing
money from her. As a result, she fell even
further into debt to support his demands.
It was one of these importunate loans that
allowed him to travel to Valenciennes, France,
where he died in 1791.When Byron's great-uncle,
the "wicked" Lord Byron, died on 21 May 1798,
the 10-year-old boy became the 6th Baron Byron
of Rochdale and inherited the ancestral home,
Newstead Abbey, in Nottinghamshire. His mother
proudly took him to England, but the Abbey
was in an embarrassing state of disrepair
and, rather than living there, she decided
to lease it to Lord Grey de Ruthyn, among
others, during Byron's adolescence.
Described as "a woman without judgment or
self-command," Catherine either spoiled and
indulged her son or vexed him with her capricious
stubbornness. Her drinking disgusted him and
he often mocked her for being short and corpulent,
which made it difficult for her to catch him
to discipline him. Byron had been born with
a deformed right foot; his mother once retaliated
and, in a fit of temper, referred to him as
"a lame brat." However, Byron's biographer,
Doris Langley-Moore, in her 1974 book, Accounts
Rendered, paints a more sympathetic view of
Mrs Byron, showing how she was a staunch supporter
of her son and sacrificed her own precarious
finances to keep him in luxury at Harrow and
Cambridge. Langley-Moore questions the Galt
claim that she over-indulged in alcohol.
Upon the death of Byron's mother-in-law Judith
Noel, the Hon. Lady Milbanke, in 1822, her
will required that he change his surname to
"Noel" so as to inherit half of her estate.
He obtained a Royal Warrant, allowing him
to "take and use the surname of Noel only"
and to "subscribe the said surname of Noel
before all titles of honour". From that point
he signed himself "Noel Byron" (the usual
signature of a peer being merely the peerage,
in this case simply "Byron"). It is speculated
that this was so that his initials would read
"N.B.", mimicking those of his hero, Napoleon
Bonaparte. Lady Byron eventually succeeded
to the Barony of Wentworth, becoming "Lady
Wentworth."
== Education and early loves ==
Byron received his early formal education
at Aberdeen Grammar School, and in August
1799 entered the school of Dr. William Glennie,
in Dulwich. Placed under the care of a Dr.
Bailey, he was encouraged to exercise in moderation
but could not restrain himself from "violent"
bouts in an attempt to overcompensate for
his deformed foot. His mother interfered with
his studies, often withdrawing him from school,
with the result that he lacked discipline
and his classical studies were neglected.
In 1801, he was sent to Harrow, where he remained
until July 1805. An undistinguished student
and an unskilled cricketer, he did represent
the school during the very first Eton v Harrow
cricket match at Lord's in 1805.His lack of
moderation was not restricted to physical
exercise. Byron fell in love with Mary Chaworth,
whom he met while at school, and she was the
reason he refused to return to Harrow in September
1803. His mother wrote, "He has no indisposition
that I know of but love, desperate love, the
worst of all maladies in my opinion. In short,
the boy is distractedly in love with Miss
Chaworth." In Byron's later memoirs, "Mary
Chaworth is portrayed as the first object
of his adult sexual feelings."Byron finally
returned in January 1804, to a more settled
period which saw the formation of a circle
of emotional involvements with other Harrow
boys, which he recalled with great vividness:
"My school friendships were with me passions
(for I was always violent)." The most enduring
of those was with John FitzGibbon, 2nd Earl
of Clare — four years Byron's junior — whom
he was to meet unexpectedly many years later
in Italy (1821). His nostalgic poems about
his Harrow friendships, Childish Recollections
(1806), express a prescient "consciousness
of sexual differences that may in the end
make England untenable to him." Letters to
Byron in the John Murray archive contain evidence
of a previously unremarked if short-lived
romantic relationship with a younger boy at
Harrow, John Thomas Claridge.
The following autumn, he went up to Trinity
College, Cambridge, where he met and formed
a close friendship with the younger John Edleston.
About his "protégé" he wrote, "He has been
my almost constant associate since October,
1805, when I entered Trinity College. His
voice first attracted my attention, his countenance
fixed it, and his manners attached me to him
for ever." In his memory Byron composed Thyrza,
a series of elegies. In later years, he described
the affair as "a violent, though pure love
and passion". This statement, however, needs
to be read in the context of hardening public
attitudes toward homosexuality in England
and the severe sanctions (including public
hanging) against convicted or even suspected
offenders. The liaison, on the other hand,
may well have been "pure" out of respect for
Edleston's innocence, in contrast to the (probably)
more sexually overt relations experienced
at Harrow School.Byron spent three years at
Trinity College, engaging in sexual escapades,
boxing, horse riding and gambling. Also while
at Cambridge he formed lifelong friendships
with men such as John Cam Hobhouse, who initiated
him into the Cambridge Whig Club, which endorsed
liberal politics, and Francis Hodgson, a Fellow
at King's College, with whom he corresponded
on literary and other matters until the end
of his life.
== Career ==
=== 
Early career ===
While not at school or college, Byron lived
with his mother in Southwell, Nottinghamshire.
While there, he cultivated friendships with
Elizabeth Pigot and her brother, John, with
whom he staged two plays for the entertainment
of the community. During this time, with the
help of Elizabeth Pigot, who copied many of
his rough drafts, he was encouraged to write
his first volumes of poetry. Fugitive Pieces
was printed by Ridge of Newark, which contained
poems written when Byron was only 17. However,
it was promptly recalled and burned on the
advice of his friend, the Reverend J. T. Becher,
on account of its more amorous verses, particularly
the poem To Mary.Hours of Idleness, which
collected many of the previous poems, along
with more recent compositions, was the culminating
book. The savage, anonymous criticism this
received (now known to be the work of Henry
Peter Brougham) in the Edinburgh Review prompted
his first major satire, English Bards and
Scotch Reviewers (1809). It was put into the
hands of his relation, R. C. Dallas, requesting
him to "...get it published without his name."
Alexander Dallas gives a large series of changes
and alterations, as well as the reasoning
for some of them. He also states that Byron
had originally intended to prefix an argument
to this poem, and Dallas quotes it. Although
the work was published anonymously, by April,
R. C. Dallas is writing that "you are already
pretty generally known to be the author."
The work so upset some of his critics they
challenged Byron to a duel; over time, in
subsequent editions, it became a mark of prestige
to be the target of Byron's pen.
After his return from travels he again entrusted
R. C. Dallas as his literary agent to publish
his poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, which
Byron thought of little account. The first
two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage were
published in 1812 and were received with acclaim.
In his own words, "I awoke one morning and
found myself famous." He followed up his success
with the poem's last two cantos, as well as
four equally celebrated "Oriental Tales":
The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair
and Lara. About the same time, he began his
intimacy with his future biographer, Thomas
Moore.
=== First travels to the East ===
Byron racked up numerous debts as a young
man, owing to what his mother termed a "reckless
disregard for money". She lived at Newstead
during this time, in fear of her son's creditors.
He had planned to spend early 1808 cruising
with his cousin, George Bettesworth, who was
captain of the 32-gun frigate HMS Tartar.
Bettesworth's unfortunate death at the Battle
of Alvøen in May 1808 made that impossible.
From 1809 to 1811, Byron went on the Grand
Tour, then customary for a young nobleman.
He travelled with Hobhouse for the first year
and his entourage of servants included Byron's
trustworthy valet, William Fletcher. Fletcher
was often the butt of Hobhouse and Byron’s
humour. The Napoleonic Wars forced him to
avoid most of Europe, and he instead turned
to the Mediterranean. The journey provided
the opportunity to flee creditors, as well
as a former love, Mary Chaworth (the subject
of his poem from this time, "To a Lady: On
Being Asked My Reason for Quitting England
in the Spring"). Letters to Byron from his
friend Charles Skinner Matthews reveal that
a key motive was also the hope of homosexual
experience. Attraction to the Levant was probably
also a reason; he had read about the Ottoman
and Persian lands as a child, was attracted
to Islam (especially Sufi mysticism), and
later wrote, "With these countries, and events
connected with them, all my really poetical
feelings begin and end."Byron began his trip
in Portugal from where he wrote a letter to
his friend Mr. Hodgson in which he describes
his mastery of the Portuguese language, consisting
mainly of swearing and insults. Byron particularly
enjoyed his stay in Sintra that is described
in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage as "glorious
Eden". From Lisbon he travelled overland to
Seville, Jerez de la Frontera, Cádiz, Gibraltar
and from there by sea on to Malta and Greece.While
in Athens, Byron met 14-year-old Nicolo Giraud,
who became quite close and taught him Italian.
It has been suggested that the two had an
intimate relationship involving a sexual affair.
Byron sent Giraud to school at a monastery
in Malta and bequeathed him a sizeable sum
of seven thousand pounds sterling. The will,
however, was later cancelled. "I am tired
of pl & opt Cs, the last thing I could be
tired of", Byron wrote to Hobhouse from Athens
(an abbreviation of "coitum plenum et optabilem"
– complete intercourse to one's heart's
desire, from Petronius's Satyricon), which,
as an earlier letter establishes, was their
shared code for homosexual experience.In 1810
in Athens Byron wrote Maid of Athens, ere
we part for a 12-year-old girl, Teresa Makri
(1798–1875), and reportedly offered £500
for her. The offer was not accepted.Byron
made his way to Smyrna, where he and Hobhouse
cadged a ride to Constantinople on HMS Salsette.
While Salsette was anchored awaiting Ottoman
permission to dock at the city, on 3 May 1810
Byron and Lieutenant Ekenhead, of Salsette's
Marines, swam the Hellespont. Byron commemorated
this feat in the second canto of Don Juan.
He returned to England from Malta in July
1811 aboard HMS Volage.
=== England 1811–1816 ===
Byron became a celebrity with the publication
of the first two cantos of "Childe Harold's
Pilgrimage" (1812). "He rapidly became the
most brilliant star in the dazzling world
of Regency London. He was sought after at
every society venue, elected to several exclusive
clubs, and frequented the most fashionable
London drawing-rooms." During this period
in England he produced many works including
The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos (1813), Parisina
and The Siege of Corinth (1815). Involved
at first in an affair with Lady Caroline Lamb
(who called him "mad, bad and dangerous to
know") and with other lovers and also pressed
by debt, he began to seek a suitable marriage,
considering – amongst others – Annabella
Millbanke. However, in 1813 he met for the
first time in four years his half-sister,
Augusta Leigh. Rumours of incest surrounded
the pair; Augusta's daughter Medora (b. 1814)
was suspected to have been Byron's. To escape
from growing debts and rumours, Byron pressed
his determination to marry Annabella, who
was said to be the likely heiress of a rich
uncle. They married on 2 January 1815, and
their daughter, Ada, was born in December
of that year. However Byron's continuing obsession
with Augusta (and his continuing sexual escapades
with actresses and others) made their marital
life a misery. Annabella considered Byron
insane, and in January 1816 she left him,
taking their daughter, and began proceedings
for a legal separation. Their separation was
made legal in a private settlement in March
1816. The scandal of the separation, the rumours
about Augusta, and ever-increasing debts forced
him to leave England in April 1816, never
to return.
== Life abroad (1816–1824) ==
=== The Shelleys ===
After this break-up of his domestic life,
Byron left England and never returned. (Despite
his dying wishes, however, his body was returned
for burial in England.) He journeyed through
Belgium and continued up the Rhine river.
In the summer of 1816 he settled at the Villa
Diodati by Lake Geneva, Switzerland, with
his personal physician, the young, brilliant
and handsome John William Polidori. There
Byron befriended the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley,
and Shelley's future wife Mary Godwin. He
was also joined by Mary's stepsister, Claire
Clairmont, with whom he had had an affair
in London. Several times Byron went to see
Germaine de Staël and her Coppet group, which
turned out to be a valid intellectual and
emotional support to Byron at the time.
Kept indoors at the Villa Diodati by the "incessant
rain" of "that wet, ungenial summer" over
three days in June, the five turned to reading
fantastical stories, including Fantasmagoriana,
and then devising their own tales. Mary Shelley
produced what would become Frankenstein, or
The Modern Prometheus, and Polidori was inspired
by a fragmentary story of Byron's, "A Fragment",
to produce The Vampyre, the progenitor of
the romantic vampire genre.Byron's story fragment
was published as a postscript to Mazeppa;
he also wrote the third canto of Childe Harold.
Byron wintered in Venice, pausing his travels
when he fell in love with Marianna Segati,
in whose Venice house he was lodging, and
who was soon replaced by 22-year-old Margarita
Cogni; both women were married. Cogni could
not read or write, and she left her husband
to move into Byron's Venice house. Their fighting
often caused Byron to spend the night in his
gondola; when he asked her to leave the house,
she threw herself into the Venetian canal.
=== Italy ===
In 1816, Byron visited San Lazzaro degli Armeni
in Venice, where he acquainted himself with
Armenian culture with the help of the monks
belonging to the Mechitarist Order. With the
help of Father Pascal Aucher (Harutiun Avkerian),
he learned the Armenian language, and attended
many seminars about language and history.
He co-authored Grammar English and Armenian
in 1817, an English textbook written by Aucher
and corrected by Byron, and A Grammar Armenian
and English in 1819, a project initiated by
him of a grammar of Classical Armenian for
English speakers, where he included quotations
from classical and modern Armenian.Byron later
participated in the compilation of the English
Armenian dictionary (Barraran angleren yev
hayeren, 1821) and wrote the preface in which
he explained the relationship of the Armenians
with and the oppression of the Turkish "pashas"
and the Persian satraps, and their struggle
of liberation. His two main translations are
the Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, two
chapters of Movses Khorenatsi's History of
Armenia and sections of Nerses of Lambron's
Orations.His fascination was so great that
he even considered a replacement of the Cain
story of the Bible with that of the legend
of Armenian patriarch Haik. He may be credited
with the birth of Armenology and its propagation.
His profound lyricism and ideological courage
has inspired many Armenian poets, the likes
of Ghevond Alishan, Smbat Shahaziz, Hovhannes
Tumanyan, Ruben Vorberian and others.In 1817,
he journeyed to Rome. On returning to Venice,
he wrote the fourth canto of Childe Harold.
About the same time, he sold Newstead and
published Manfred, Cain and The Deformed Transformed.
The first five cantos of Don Juan were written
between 1818 and 1820, during which period
he made the acquaintance of the 18 year old
Countess Guiccioli, who found her first love
in Byron, who in turn asked her to elope with
him.Led by the love for this local aristocratic,
and newly married, young Teresa Guiccioli,
Byron lived in Ravenna between 1819 and 1821.
Here he continued Don Juan and wrote the Ravenna
Diary and My Dictionary and Recollections.
It was about this time that he received visits
from Shelley, as well as from Thomas Moore,
to whom he confided his autobiography or "life
and adventures", which Moore, Hobhouse, and
Byron's publisher, John Murray, burned in
1824, a month after Byron's death. Of Byron's
lifestyle in Ravenna we know more from Shelley,
who documented some of its more colourful
aspects in a letter: "Lord Byron gets up at
two. I get up, quite contrary to my usual
custom … at 12. After breakfast we sit talking
till six. From six to eight we gallop through
the pine forest which divide Ravenna from
the sea; we then come home and dine, and sit
up gossiping till six in the morning. I don’t
suppose this will kill me in a week or fortnight,
but I shall not try it longer. Lord B.’s
establishment consists, besides servants,
of ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three
monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and
a falcon; and all these, except the horses,
walk about the house, which every now and
then resounds with their unarbitrated quarrels,
as if they were the masters of it… . [P.S.]
I find that my enumeration of the animals
in this Circean Palace was defective … . I
have just met on the grand staircase five
peacocks, two guinea hens, and an Egyptian
crane. I wonder who all these animals were
before they were changed into these shapes."
In 1821 Byron left Ravenna and went to live
in the Tuscan city of Pisa, to which Teresa
had also relocated. From 1821 to 1822, Byron
finished Cantos 6–12 of Don Juan at Pisa,
and in the same year he joined with Leigh
Hunt and Shelley in starting a short-lived
newspaper, The Liberal, in the first number
of which appeared The Vision of Judgment.
For the first time since his arrival in Italy,
Byron found himself tempted to give dinner
parties; his guests included the Shelleys,
Edward Ellerker Williams, Thomas Medwin, John
Taaffe and Edward John Trelawny; and "never",
as Shelley said, "did he display himself to
more advantage than on these occasions; being
at once polite and cordial, full of social
hilarity and the most perfect good humour;
never diverging into ungraceful merriment,
and yet keeping up the spirit of liveliness
throughout the evening."Shelley and Williams
rented a house on the coast and had a schooner
built. Byron decided to have his own yacht,
and engaged Trelawny's friend, Captain Daniel
Roberts, to design and construct the boat.
Named the Bolivar, it was later sold to Charles
John Gardiner, 1st Earl of Blessington, and
Marguerite, Countess of Blessington, when
Byron left for Greece in 1823.Byron attended
the funeral of Shelley, which was orchestrated
by Trelawny after Williams and Shelley drowned
in a boating accident on 8 July 1822. His
last Italian home was Genoa. While living
there he was accompanied by the Countess Guiccioli
and the Blessingtons. Lady Blessington based
much of the material in her book, Conversations
with Lord Byron, on the time spent together
there. This book became an important biographical
text about Byron’s life just prior to his
death.
=== Greece ===
Byron was living in Genoa when, in 1823, while
growing bored with his life there, he accepted
overtures for his support from representatives
of the movement for Greek independence from
the Ottoman Empire. At first, Byron did not
wish to leave his twenty-two-year-old mistress
Countess Teresa Guiccioli who had abandoned
her husband to live with him; ultimately Guiccioli's
father, Count Gamba was allowed to leave his
exile in the Romagna under the condition that
his daughter return to him, without Byron.
At the same time that the philhellene Edward
Blaquiere was attempting to recruit him, Byron
was confused as to what he was supposed to
do in Greece, writing: "Blaquiere seemed to
think that I might be of some use-even here;-though
what he did not exactly specify". With the
assistance of his banker and Captain Daniel
Roberts, Byron chartered the brig Hercules
to take him to Greece. When Byron left Genoa,
it caused "passionate grief" from Guiccioli,
who wept openly as he sailed away to Greece.
The Hercules was forced to return to port
shortly afterwards. When it set sail for the
final time, Guiccioli had already left Genoa.
On 16 July, Byron left Genoa arriving at Kefalonia
in the Ionian Islands on 4 August.
His voyage is covered in detail in Donald
Prell's Sailing with Byron from Genoa to Cephalonia.
Prell also wrote of a coincidence in Byron's
chartering the Hercules. The vessel was launched
only a few miles south of Seaham Hall, where
in 1815 Byron married Annabella Milbanke.
Between 1815 and 1823 the vessel was in service
between England and Canada. Suddenly in 1823,
the ship's Captain decided to sail to Genoa
and offer the Hercules for charter. After
taking Byron to Greece, the ship returned
to England, never again to venture into the
Mediterranean. The Hercules was aged 37 when,
on 21 September 1852, she went aground near
Hartlepool, only 25 miles south of Sunderland,
where in 1815, her keel was laid; Byron's
"keel was laid" nine months before his official
birth date, 22 January 1788; therefore in
ship-years, he was aged 37, when he died in
Missolonghi.Byron initially stayed on the
island of Kephalonia, where he was besieged
by agents of the rival Greek factions, all
of whom wanted to recruit Byron to their own
cause. The Ionian islands, of which Kefalonia
is one, were under British rule until 1864.
Byron spent £4,000 of his own money to refit
the Greek fleet. When Byron travelled to the
mainland of Greece on the night of 28 December
1823, Byron's ship was surprised by an Ottoman
warship, which did not attack his ship as
the Ottoman captain mistook Byron's boat for
a fireship. To avoid the Ottoman Navy, which
he encountered several times on his voyage,
Byron was forced to take a roundabout route
and only reached Missolonghi on 5 January
1824.After arriving in Missolonghi, Byron
joined forces with Alexandros Mavrokordatos,
a Greek politician with military power. Byron
moved on the second floor of a two-story house
and was forced much of his time dealing with
unruly Souliots who demanded that Byron pay
them the back-pay owed to them by the Greek
government. Byron gave the Souliots some £6,000
pounds. Byron was supposed to lead an attack
on the Ottoman fortress of Navpaktos, whose
Albanian garrison were unhappy owing to pay
arrears and were offering to put up only token
resistance if Byron was willing to bribe them
into surrendering, but Ottoman commander,
Yussuf Pasha solved the problem by executing
the mutinous Albanian officers who were offering
to surrender Navpaktos to Byron and arranging
to have some of the pay arrears paid out to
the rest of the garrison. Byron never led
the attack on Navpaktos as the Souliots kept
demanding that Byron pay them more and more
money before they would march, before Byron
who was growing tired of their blackmail sent
them all home on 15 February 1824. Byron wrote
in a note to himself: "Having tried in vain
at every expence-considerable trouble-and
some danger to unite the Suliotes for the
good of Greece-and their own-I have come to
the following resolution-I will have nothing
more to do with the Suliotes-they may go to
the Turks or the devil...they 
may cut me into more pieces than they have
dissensions among them, sooner than change
my resolution". At the same time, Guiccioli's
brother, Pietro Gamba who followed Byron to
Greece exasperated Byron with his incompetence
as he consistently made expensive mistakes,
for example, when asked to buy some cloth
from Corfu, Gamba ordered the wrong cloth
in excess, leading to the bill being ten times
higher than what Byron wanted. Byron wrote
about his right-hand man: "Gamba-who is anything
but lucky-had something to do with it-and
as usual-the moment he had-matters went wrong".
To help raise money for the revolution, Byron
sold his estate Rochdale Manor in England,
which raised some £11,250 pound sterling,
which led Byron to estimate that he now had
some £20,000 pounds at his disposal, all
of which he planned to spend on the Greek
cause. In today's money Byron would have been
a millionaire many times over, and the news
that a fabulously wealthy British aristocrat
known for his generosity in spending money
had arrived in Greece made Byron the object
of much solicitation in a desperately poor
country like Greece. Byron wrote to his business
agent in England "I should not like to give
the Greeks but a half helping hand", saying
he would have wanted to spend his entire fortune
on Greek freedom. Byron found himself besieged
by various people, both Greek and foreign
who were always trying to persuade Byron to
open up his pocketbook to support them. By
the end of March 1824, the so-called "Byron
brigade" of 30 philhellene officers and about
200 men had been formed, paid for entirely
by Byron. Leadership of the Greek cause in
the Roumeli region was divided between two
rival leaders, a former Klepht (bandit) Odysseas
Androutsos and a wealthy Phanariot merchant
Alexandros Mavrokordatos. Byron used his prestige
to attempt to persuade the two rival leaders
to come together to focus on defeating the
Ottomans. At same time, other leaders of the
Greek factions like Petrobey Mavromichalis
and Theodoros Kolokotronis were writing letters
to Byron telling him to disregard all of the
Roumeliot leaders and to come to their respective
areas in the Peloponnese, which drove Byron
to distraction as he complained that the Greeks
were hopelessly disunited and spent more time
feuding with each other than in trying to
win independence. Byron's friend Edward John
Trelawny had aligned himself with Androutsos,
who ruled Athens and was now pressing for
Byron to break with Mavrokordatos in favour
of backing his rival Androutsos. Androutsos,
having won over Trelawny to his cause, was
now anxious to win the real prize by persuading
Byron to put his wealth behind his claim to
be the leader of Greece. Byron wrote with
disgust how one of the Greek captains, a former
Klepht Georgios Karaiskakis attacked Missolonghi
on 3 April 1824 with some 150 men supported
by the Souliots as he was unhappy with Mavrokordatos's
leadership, leading to a brief bout of inter-Greek
fighting before Karaiskais was chased away
by 6 April.Byron adopted a nine year old Turkish
Muslim girl called Hato whose parents had
been killed by the Greeks, and whom he ultimately
sent to safety in Kephalonia, knowing well
that religious hatred between the Orthodox
Greeks and Muslim Turks were running high
and any Muslim in Greece, even a child, was
in serious danger. Until 1934, most Turks
did not have surnames, so Hato's lack of a
surname was quite typical for a Turkish family
at this time. During this time, Byron pursued
his Greek page, Lukas Chalandritsanos, with
whom he had fallen madly in love, but the
affections went unrequited. Byron was infatuated
with the teenage Chalandritsanos, whom he
spoiled outrageously, spending some £600
(the equivalent to about £24,600 in today's
money) to cater to his every whim over the
course of six months and wrote his last poems
about his passion for the Greek boy, but Chalandritsanos
was only interested in Byron's money. When
the famous Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen
heard about Byron's heroics in Greece, he
voluntarily resculpted his earlier bust of
Byron in Greek marble.
=== Death ===
Mavrokordatos and Byron planned to attack
the Turkish-held fortress of Lepanto, at the
mouth of the Gulf of Corinth. Byron employed
a fire-master to prepare artillery and he
took part of the rebel army under his own
command, despite his lack of military experience.
Before the expedition could sail, on 15 February
1824, he fell ill, and bloodletting weakened
him further. He made a partial recovery, but
in early April he caught a violent cold, which
therapeutic bleeding, insisted on by his doctors,
aggravated. It is suspected this treatment,
carried out with unsterilised medical instruments,
may have caused him to develop sepsis. He
contracted a violent fever, and died in Missolonghi
on 19 April.His physician at the time, Julius
van Millingen, son of Dutch-English archaeologist
James Millingen, was unable to prevent his
death. It has been said that if Byron had
lived and had gone on to defeat the Ottomans,
he might have been declared King of Greece.
However, contemporary scholars have found
such an outcome unlikely. The British historian
David Brewer wrote that in one sense, Byron
was a failure in Greece as he failed to persuade
the rival Greek factions to unite. Also, he
did not achieve any military victories. He
was successful only in the humanitarian sphere,
using his great wealth to help the victims
of the war, Muslim and Christian, but this
did not affect the outcome of the Greek war
of independence one iota.Brewer went on to
argue "In another sense, though, Byron achieved
everything he could have wished. His presence
in Greece, and in particular his death there,
drew to the Greek cause not just the attention
of sympathetic nations, but their increasing
active participation...Despite the critics,
Byron is primarily remembered with admiration
as a poet of genius, with something approaching
veneration as a symbol of high ideals, and
with great affection as a man: for his courage
and his ironic slant on life, for his generosity
to the grandest of causes and to the humblest
of individuals, for the constant interplay
of judgment and sympathy. In Greece he is
still revered as no other foreigner, and as
very few Greeks are, and like a Homeric hero
he is accorded an honorific standard epithet,
megalos kai kalos, a great and good man".
==== Post mortem ====
Alfred Tennyson would later recall the shocked
reaction in Britain when word was received
of Byron's death. The Greeks mourned Lord
Byron deeply, and he became a hero. The national
poet of Greece, Dionysios Solomos, wrote a
poem about the unexpected loss, named To the
Death of Lord Byron. Βύρων, the Greek
form of "Byron", continues in popularity as
a masculine name in Greece, and a town near
Athens is called Vyronas in his honour.
Byron's body was embalmed, but the Greeks
wanted some part of their hero to stay with
them. According to some sources, his heart
remained at Missolonghi. His other remains
were sent to England (accompanied by his faithful
manservant, "Tita") for burial in Westminster
Abbey, but the Abbey refused for reason of
"questionable morality". Huge crowds viewed
his coffin as he lay in state for two days
in London. He is buried at the Church of St.
Mary Magdalene in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire.
A marble slab given by the King of Greece
is laid directly above Byron's grave. His
daughter, Ada Lovelace, was later buried beside
him.Byron's friends raised the sum of 1,000
pounds to commission a statue of the writer;
Thorvaldsen offered to sculpt it for that
amount. However, for ten years after the statue
was completed in 1834, most British institutions
turned it down, and it remained in storage.
The statue was refused by the British Museum,
St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and
the National Gallery before Trinity College,
Cambridge, finally placed the statue of Byron
in its library.In 1969, 145 years after Byron's
death, a memorial to him was finally placed
in Westminster Abbey. The memorial had been
lobbied for since 1907: The New York Times
wrote, "People are beginning to ask whether
this ignoring of Byron is not a thing of which
England should be ashamed ... a bust or a
tablet might be put in the Poets' Corner and
England be relieved of ingratitude toward
one of her really great sons."Robert Ripley
had drawn a picture of Boatswain's grave with
the caption "Lord Byron's dog has a magnificent
tomb while Lord Byron himself has none". This
came as a shock to the English, particularly
schoolchildren, who, Ripley said, raised funds
of their own accord to provide the poet with
a suitable memorial.Close to the centre of
Athens, Greece, outside the National Garden,
is a statue depicting Greece in the form of
a woman crowning Byron. The statue is by the
French sculptors Henri-Michel Chapu and Alexandre
Falguière. Since 2008, the anniversary of
Byron's death, 19 April, has been honoured
in Greece as "Byron Day".Upon his death, the
barony passed to Byron's cousin George Anson
Byron, a career naval officer.
== Personal life ==
=== 
Relationships and scandals ===
Byron described his first intense feelings
at age eight for his distant cousin, Mary
Duff:
My mother used always to rally me about this
childish amour, and at last, many years after,
when I was sixteen, she told me one day, 'O
Byron, I have had a letter from Edinburgh,
and your old sweetheart, Mary Duff, is married
to Mr. C***.' And what was my answer? I really
cannot explain or account for my feelings
at that moment, but they nearly threw me into
convulsions...How the deuce did all this occur
so early? Where could it originate? I certainly
had no sexual ideas for years afterwards;
and yet my misery, my love for that girl were
so violent, that I sometimes doubt if I have
ever been really attached since. Be that as
it may, hearing of her marriage several years
after was like a thunder-stroke – it nearly
choked me – to the horror of my mother and
the astonishment and almost incredulity of
every body. And it is a phenomenon in my existence
(for I was not eight years old) which has
puzzled, and will puzzle me to the latest
hour of it; and lately, I know not why, the
recollection (not the attachment) has recurred
as forcibly as ever...But, the more I reflect,
the more I am bewildered to assign any cause
for this precocity of affection.
Byron also became attached to Margaret Parker,
another distant cousin. While his recollection
of his love for Mary Duff is that he was ignorant
of adult sexuality during this time, and was
bewildered as to the source of the intensity
of his feelings, he would later confess that:
My passions were developed very early – so
early, that few would believe me – if I
were to state the period – and the facts
which accompanied it. Perhaps this was one
of the reasons that caused the anticipated
melancholy of my thoughts – having anticipated
life. This is the only reference Byron himself
makes to the event, and he is ambiguous as
to how old he was when it occurred. After
his death, his lawyer wrote to a mutual friend
telling him a "singular fact" about Byron's
life which was "scarcely fit for narration".
But he disclosed it nonetheless, thinking
it might explain Byron's sexual "propensities":
When nine years old at his mother's house
a Free Scotch girl [May, sometimes called
Mary, Gray, one of his first caretakers] used
to come to bed to him and play tricks with
his person. Gray later used this knowledge
as a means of ensuring his silence if he were
to be tempted to disclose the "low company"
she kept during drinking binges. She was later
dismissed, supposedly for beating Byron when
he was 11.A few years later, while he was
still a child, Lord Grey De Ruthyn (unrelated
to May Gray), a suitor of his mother's, also
made sexual advances on him. Byron's personality
has been characterised as exceptionally proud
and sensitive, especially when it came to
his deformity. His extreme reaction to seeing
his mother flirting outrageously with Lord
Grey De Ruthyn after the incident suggests
this; he did not tell her of Grey's conduct
toward him, he simply refused to speak to
him again and ignored his mother's commands
to be reconciled. Leslie A. Marchand, one
of Byron's biographers, theorises that Lord
Grey De Ruthyn's advances prompted Byron's
later sexual liaisons with young men at Harrow
and Cambridge.
Scholars acknowledge a more or less important
bisexual component in Byron's very complex
sentimental and sexual life. Bernhard Jackson
asserts that "Byron's sexual orientation has
long been a difficult, not to say contentious,
topic, and anyone who seeks to discuss it
must to some degree speculate, since the evidence
is nebulous, contradictory and scanty... it
is not so simple to define Byron as homosexual
or heterosexual: he seems rather to have been
both, and either." Crompton states: "What
was not understood in Byron's own century
(except by a tiny circle of his associates)
was that Byron was bisexual". Another biographer,
Fiona MacCarthy, has posited that Byron's
true sexual yearnings were for adolescent
males. Byron notably used a code by which
he communicated his homosexual Greek adventures
to John Hobhouse in England: Bernhard Jackson
recalls that "Byron's early code for sex with
a boy" was "Plen(um). and optabil(em). -Coit(um)"
Bullough summarizes: Byron, was attached to
Nicolo Giraud, a young French-Greek lad who
had been a model for the painter Lusieri before
Byron found him. Byron left him 7,000 pounds
in his will. When Byron returned to Italy,
he became involved with a number of boys in
Venice but eventually settled on Loukas Chalandritsanos,
age 15, who was with him when he was killed
[sic] (Crompton, 1985).
In 1812, Byron embarked on a well-publicised
affair with the married Lady Caroline Lamb
that shocked the British public. She had spurned
the attention of the poet on their first meeting,
subsequently giving Byron what became his
lasting epitaph when she famously described
him as "mad, bad and dangerous to know". This
did not prevent her from pursuing him.Byron
eventually broke off the relationship, and
moved swiftly on to others (such as that with
Lady Oxford), but Lamb never entirely recovered,
pursuing him even after he tired of her. She
was emotionally disturbed, and lost so much
weight that Byron sarcastically commented
to her mother-in-law, his friend Lady Melbourne,
that he was "haunted by a skeleton".
She began to call on him at home, sometimes
dressed in disguise as a pageboy, at a time
when such an act could ruin both of them socially.
One day, during such a visit, she wrote on
a book at his desk, "Remember me!" As a retort,
Byron wrote a poem entitled Remember Thee!
Remember Thee! which concludes with the line
"Thou false to him, thou fiend to me".
As a child, Byron had seen little of his half-sister
Augusta Leigh; in adulthood, he formed a close
relationship with her that has been interpreted
by some as incestuous, and by others as innocent.
Augusta (who was married) gave birth on 15
April 1814 to her third daughter, Elizabeth
Medora Leigh, rumoured by some to be Byron's.
Eventually Byron began to court Lady Caroline's
cousin Anne Isabella Milbanke ("Annabella"),
who refused his first proposal of marriage
but later accepted him. Milbanke was a highly
moral woman, intelligent and mathematically
gifted; she was also an heiress. They married
at Seaham Hall, County Durham, on 2 January
1815.The marriage proved unhappy. He treated
her poorly. They had a daughter (Augusta Ada).
On 16 January 1816, Lady Byron left him, taking
Ada with her. That same year (21 April), Byron
signed the Deed of Separation. Rumours of
marital violence, adultery with actresses,
incest with Augusta Leigh, and sodomy were
circulated, assisted by a jealous Lady Caroline.
In a letter, Augusta quoted him as saying:
"Even to have such a thing said is utter destruction
and ruin to a man from which he can never
recover." That same year Lady Caroline published
her popular novel Glenarvon, wherein Lord
Byron was portrayed as the seedy character
Lord Ruthven.
=== Children ===
Byron wrote a letter to John Hanson from Newstead
Abbey, dated 17 January 1809, that includes
"You will discharge my Cook, & Laundry Maid,
the other two I shall retain to take care
of the house, more especially as the youngest
is pregnant (I need not tell you by whom)
and I cannot have the girl on the parish."
His reference to "The youngest" is understood
to have been to a maid, Lucy, and the parenthesised
remark to indicate himself as siring a son
born that year. In 2010 part of a baptismal
record was uncovered which apparently said:
"September 24 George illegitimate son of Lucy
Monk, illegitimate son of Baron Byron, of
Newstead, Nottingham, Newstead Abbey."Augusta
Leigh's child, Elizabeth Medora Leigh, born
1814, was very likely fathered by Byron, who
was Augusta's half-brother.
Byron had a child, The Hon. Augusta Ada Byron
("Ada", later Countess of Lovelace), in 1815,
by his wife Annabella Byron, Lady Byron (née
Anne Isabella Milbanke, or "Annabella"), later
Lady Wentworth. Ada Lovelace, notable in her
own right, collaborated with Charles Babbage
on the analytical engine, a predecessor to
modern computers. She is recognised as the
world's first computer programmer.
He also had an illegitimate child in 1817,
Clara Allegra Byron, with Claire Clairmont,
stepsister of Mary Shelley and stepdaughter
of William Godwin, writer of Political Justice
and Caleb Williams. Allegra is not entitled
to the style "The Hon." as is usually given
to the daughter of barons, since she was illegitimate.
Born in Bath in 1817, Allegra lived with Byron
for a few months in Venice; he refused to
allow an Englishwoman caring for the girl
to adopt her, and objected to her being raised
in the Shelleys' household. He wished for
her to be brought up Catholic and not marry
an Englishman, and he made arrangements for
her to inherit 5,000 lira upon marriage or
when she reached the age of 21, provided she
did not marry a native of Britain. However,
the girl died aged five of a fever in Bagnacavallo,
Italy while Byron was in Pisa; he was deeply
upset by the news. He had Allegra's body sent
back to England to be buried at his old school,
Harrow, because Protestants could not be buried
in consecrated ground in Catholic countries.
At one time he himself had wanted to be buried
at Harrow. Byron was indifferent towards Allegra's
mother, Claire Clairmont.
=== Sea and swimming ===
Byron enjoyed adventure, especially relating
to the sea.The first recorded notable example
of open water swimming took place on 3 May
1810 when Lord Byron swam from Europe to Asia
across the Hellespont Strait. This is often
seen as the birth of the sport and pastime,
and to commemorate it, the event is recreated
every year as an open water swimming event.Whilst
sailing from Genoa to Cephalonia in 1823,
every day at noon, Byron and Trelawny, in
calm weather, jumped overboard for a swim
without fear of sharks, which were not unknown
in those waters. Once, according to Trelawny,
they let the geese and ducks loose and followed
them and the dogs into the water, each with
an arm in the ship Captain’s new scarlet
waistcoat, to the annoyance of the Captain
and the amusement of the crew.
=== Fondness for animals ===
Byron had a great love of animals, most notably
for a Newfoundland dog named Boatswain. When
the animal contracted rabies, Byron nursed
him, albeit unsuccessfully, without any thought
or fear of becoming bitten and infected.Although
deep in debt at the time, Byron commissioned
an impressive marble funerary monument for
Boatswain at Newstead Abbey, larger than his
own, and the only building work which he ever
carried out on his estate. In his 1811 will,
Byron requested that he be buried with him.
The 26‐line poem "Epitaph to a Dog" has
become one of his best-known works, but a
draft of an 1830 letter by Hobhouse shows
him to be the author, and that Byron decided
to use Hobhouse's lengthy epitaph instead
of his own, which read: "To mark a friend's
remains these stones arise/I never knew but
one – and here he lies."Byron also kept
a tame bear while he was a student at Trinity,
out of resentment for rules forbidding pet
dogs like his beloved Boatswain. There being
no mention of bears in their statutes, the
college authorities had no legal basis for
complaining: Byron even suggested that he
would apply for a college fellowship for the
bear.During his lifetime, in addition to numerous
cats, dogs, and horses, Byron kept a fox,
monkeys, an eagle, a crow, a falcon, peacocks,
guinea hens, an Egyptian crane, a badger,
geese, a heron, and a goat. Except for the
horses, they all resided indoors at his homes
in England, Switzerland, Italy, and Greece.
== Health and appearance ==
=== 
Character and psyche ===
I am such a strange mélange of good and evil
that it would be difficult to describe me.
As a boy, Byron's character is described as
a "mixture of affectionate sweetness and playfulness,
by which it was impossible not to be attached",
although he also exhibited "silent rages,
moody sullenness and revenge" with a precocious
bent for attachment and obsession.
=== Deformed foot ===
From birth, Byron suffered from a deformity
of his right foot. Although it has generally
been referred to as a "club foot", some modern
medical authors maintain that it was a consequence
of infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis), and
others that it was a dysplasia, a failure
of the bones to form properly. Whatever the
cause, he was afflicted with a limp that caused
him lifelong psychological and physical misery,
aggravated by painful and pointless "medical
treatment" in his childhood and the nagging
suspicion that with proper care it might have
been cured.He was extremely self-conscious
about this from a young age, nicknaming himself
le diable boiteux (French for "the limping
devil", after the nickname given to Asmodeus
by Alain-René Lesage in his 1707 novel of
the same name). Although he often wore specially-made
shoes in an attempt to hide the deformed foot,
he refused to wear any type of brace that
might improve the limp.Scottish novelist John
Galt felt his oversensitivity to the "innocent
fault in his foot was unmanly and excessive"
because the limp was "not greatly conspicuous".
He first met Byron on a voyage to Sardinia
and did not realise he had any deficiency
for several days, and still could not tell
at first if the lameness was a temporary injury
or not. At the time Galt met him he was an
adult and had worked to develop "a mode of
walking across a room by which it was scarcely
at all perceptible". The motion of the ship
at sea may also have helped to create a favourable
first impression and hide any deficiencies
in his gait, but Galt's biography is also
described as being "rather well-meant than
well-written", so Galt may be guilty of minimising
a defect that was actually still noticeable.
=== Physical appearance ===
Byron's adult height was 5 feet 8.5 inches
(1.74 m), his weight fluctuating between 9.5
stone (133 lb; 60 kg) and 14 stone (200 lb;
89 kg). He was renowned for his personal beauty,
which he enhanced by wearing curl-papers in
his hair at night. He was athletic, being
a competent boxer and horse-rider and an excellent
swimmer. He attended pugilistic tuition at
the Bond Street rooms of former prizefighting
champion ‘Gentleman’ John Jackson, who
Byron called ‘the Emperor of Pugilism’
and recorded these sparring sessions in his
letters and journals.Byron and other writers,
such as his friend Hobhouse, described his
eating habits in detail. At the time he entered
Cambridge, he went on a strict diet to control
his weight. He also exercised a great deal,
and at that time wore a great number of clothes
to cause himself to perspire. For most of
his life he was a vegetarian, and often lived
for days on dry biscuits and white wine. Occasionally
he would eat large helpings of meat and desserts,
after which he would purge himself. Although
he is described by Galt and others as having
a predilection for "violent" exercise, Hobhouse
suggests that the pain in his deformed foot
made physical activity difficult, and his
weight problem was the result.
== Political career ==
Byron first took his seat in the House of
Lords 13 March 1809, but left London on 11
June 1809 for the Continent. Byron's association
with the Holland House Whigs provided him
with a discourse of liberty rooted in the
Glorious Revolution of 1688. A strong advocate
of social reform, he received particular praise
as one of the few Parliamentary defenders
of the Luddites: specifically, he was against
a death penalty for Luddite "frame breakers"
in Nottinghamshire, who destroyed textile
machines that were putting them out of work.
His first speech before the Lords, on 27 February
1812, was loaded with sarcastic references
to the "benefits" of automation, which he
saw as producing inferior material as well
as putting people out of work, and concluded
the proposed law was only missing two things
to be effective: "Twelve Butchers for a Jury
and a Jeffries for a Judge!". Byron's speech
was officially recorded and printed in Hansard.
He said later that he "spoke very violent
sentences with a sort of modest impudence",
and thought he came across as "a bit theatrical".
The full text of the speech, which he had
previously written out, was presented to Dallas
in manuscript form and he quotes it in his
work.Two months later, in conjunction with
the other Whigs, Byron made another impassioned
speech before the House of Lords in support
of Catholic emancipation. Byron expressed
opposition to the established religion because
it was unfair to people of other faiths.These
experiences inspired Byron to write political
poems such as Song for the Luddites (1816)
and The Landlords' Interest, Canto XIV of
The Age of Bronze.
Examples of poems in which he attacked his
political opponents include Wellington: The
Best of the Cut-Throats (1819); and The Intellectual
Eunuch Castlereagh (1818).
== Poetic works ==
Byron wrote prolifically. In 1832 his publisher,
John Murray, released the complete works in
14 duodecimo volumes, including a life by
Thomas Moore. Subsequent editions were released
in 17 volumes, first published a year later,
in 1833.
=== Don Juan ===
Byron's magnum opus, Don Juan, a poem spanning
17 cantos, ranks as one of the most important
long poems published in England since John
Milton's Paradise Lost. The poem, often called
the epic of its time, has roots deep in literary
tradition and, although regarded by early
Victorians as somewhat shocking, equally involves
itself with its own contemporary world at
all levels – social, political, literary
and ideological. In addition to its biting
satire, the poem (especially in the early
cantos) is funny.Byron published the first
two cantos anonymously in 1819 after disputes
with his regular publisher over the shocking
nature of the poetry; by this time, he had
been a famous poet for seven years, and when
he self-published the beginning cantos, they
were well received in some quarters. It was
then released volume by volume through his
regular publishing house. By 1822, cautious
acceptance by the public had turned to outrage,
and Byron's publisher refused to continue
to publish the works. In Canto III of Don
Juan, Byron expresses his detestation for
poets such as William Wordsworth and Samuel
Taylor Coleridge. In letters to Francis Hodgson,
Byron referred to Wordsworth as "Turdsworth".
== Parthenon marbles ==
Byron was a bitter opponent of Lord Elgin's
removal of the Parthenon marbles from Greece,
and "reacted with fury" when Elgin's agent
gave him a tour of the Parthenon, during which
he saw the spaces left by the missing friezes
and metopes. He denounced Elgin's actions
in his poem The Curse of Minerva and in Canto
II (stanzas XI-XV) of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
== Legacy and influence ==
Byron is considered to be the first modern-style
celebrity. His image as the personification
of the Byronic hero fascinated the public,
and his wife Annabella coined the term "Byromania"
to refer to the commotion surrounding him.
His self-awareness and personal promotion
are seen as a beginning to what would become
the modern rock star; he would instruct artists
painting portraits of him not to paint him
with pen or book in hand, but as a "man of
action." While Byron first welcomed fame,
he later turned from it by going into voluntary
exile from Britain.The burning of Byron's
memoir in the offices of his publisher John
Murray a month after his death, and the suppression
of details of Byron's bisexuality by subsequent
heads of the firm (which held the richest
Byron archive), distorted biographies. As
late as the 1950s, scholar Leslie Marchard
was expressly forbidden by the Murray company
to reveal details of Byron's same-sex passions.The
re-founding of the Byron Society in 1971 reflected
the fascination that many people had with
Byron and his work. This society became very
active, publishing an annual journal. Thirty-six
Byron Societies function throughout the world,
and an International Conference takes place
annually.
Byron exercised a marked influence on Continental
literature and art, and his reputation as
a poet is higher in many European countries
than in Britain or America, although not as
high as in his time, when he was widely thought
to be the greatest poet in the world. Byron's
writings also inspired many composers. Over
forty operas have been based on his works,
in addition to three operas about Byron himself
(including Virgil Thomson's Lord Byron). His
poetry was set to music by many Romantic composers,
including Mendelssohn, Carl Loewe, and Robert
Schumann. Among his greatest admirers was
Hector Berlioz, whose operas and Mémoires
reveal Byron's influence.
=== Byronic hero ===
The figure of the Byronic hero pervades much
of his work, and Byron himself is considered
to epitomise many of the characteristics of
this literary figure. Scholars have traced
the literary history of the Byronic hero from
John Milton, and many authors and artists
of the Romantic movement show Byron's influence
during the 19th century and beyond, including
the Brontë sisters. His philosophy was more
durably influential in continental Europe
than in England; Friedrich Nietzsche admired
him, and the Byronic hero was echoed in Nietzsche's
superman.The Byronic hero presents an idealised,
but flawed character whose attributes include:
great talent; great passion; a distaste for
society and social institutions; a lack of
respect for rank and privilege (although possessing
both); being thwarted in love by social constraint
or death; rebellion; exile; an unsavory secret
past; arrogance; overconfidence or lack of
foresight; and, ultimately, a self-destructive
manner. These types of characters have since
become ubiquitous in literature and politics.
=== In popular culture ===
== Bibliography ==
=== Major works ===
=== 
Selected shorter lyric poems ===
== 
See also ==
Early life of Lord Byron
Timeline of Lord Byron
19th century in poetry
Bridge of Sighs, a Venice landmark Byron denominated
Asteroid 3306 Byron
