Description
Book SynopsisAlongside Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, and Oscar Wilde, Lord Byron possesses a star-quality unlike other classic British authors. His life as poet, philanderer, homosexual, and freedom fighter is legendary, and this new selection from his powerful letters and journals tells the story from the inside, in Byron''s own racy and passionate style. Though Byron is chiefly known as a poet, his letters and journals are one of the glories of English prose literature, and one of the greatest British acts of autobiography, alongside Pepys'' Diary and Boswell''s Journal. This new selection, taken from the authoritative and unbowdlerized edition prepared by Leslie Marchand in the 1970s, not only provides the cream of his informal prose; it amounts to a biography in Byron''s own words. No other English writer lived so remarkable an existence, from rented rooms in Aberdeen to a Nottinghamshire peerage, from European fame to English infamy, and notorious Italian exile to a glorious death in the Gr
Trade Review... a much-needed new collection of Byron's incomparable letters and journals... Lansdown is... a generous and sensitive appreciator of Byron's literary genius The volume as a whole presents an appropriately engrossing, moving, hilarious, and sometimes heartbreaking sampler of the coruscating brilliance of one of the greater letter writers in the English language. * Jeffery Vail, Keats-Shelley Journal *
This selection, which reads like a biography in his own words, is a dramatic and volatile portrait which takes the reader from England to Greece, from fame to infamy. * Robert Tanitch, Mature Times *
It is time to talk about Lord Byron again. It is also time to read him again, and I recommend Lansdowns Selected Letters and Journals as an excellent place to start. * Amit Majmuder, Able Muse *
Richard Landsdown's book is a selection from Marchand's 12, with copious biographical notes. It is hard to reduce twelve to one, but Lansdown has done well, giving readers a lively sense of "this singularly magnetic individual". * Denis Donoghue, Irish Times *
Lansdown does a valiant job of representing the thought processes and publishing dilemmas behind the major works * Corin Throsby, Times Literary Supplement *
... it is well-judged, gives good coverage to different periods of Byron's life, and feels substantially representative ... * Keats-Shelley Review *
informed, sympathetic and well-researched... deeply interesting and well-chosen selection * Tablet, Robert Carver *
This new selection of Byron's proseis arranged chronologically and linked by so much informed, sympathetic and well-researched explanatory material that it amounts to a sort of biography. * The Tablet *
This is a deeply interesting and well-chosen selection, unusually clearly printed on the highest-quality pure, white, thick paper, with superb binding: it resembles more a quality production from a private press than a trade publication, and it will certainly last several lifetimes. * The Tablet *
splendid volume * Open Letters Monthly *
The 500-odd footnoted pages Lansdown has selected are aimed not at scholars and students but at intelligent readers of literary prose. * Independent *
This is Byron in the raw and can only add to his legend * Northern Echo *
when you line Bryon's letters up like this, one after the other, you can't help but notice the growth of something like art...his prose is extraordinary * Sunday Telegraph, Benjamin Markovitz *
Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text and Short Titles A Biographical Bibliography 1: Childhood, Boyhood, Youth: January 1788-June 1809 2: The Grand Tour: June 1809-July 1811 3: Childe Harold and Caroline Lamb: July 1811-June 1813 4: The Giaour and Augusta Leigh: June 1813-July 1814 5: Marriage and Separation: August 1814-April 1816 6: Exile: April-November 1816 7: Venice and Rome: November 1816-June 1818 8: Don Juan and Teresa Guiccioli: July 1818-December 1819 9: Ravenna: December 1819-October 1821 10: Pisa: October 1821-September 1822 11: Genoa: October 1822-July 1823 12: Greece: August 1823-April 1824 Afterword Index
