“The best biography of Lord Byron ever written,” according to
Poet Laureate W. S. Merwin, is now back in print after
decades.
Of the hundreds of books on Byron and his work, not one has been
devoted to the immediate aftermath of his life; and yet it is these
first twenty posthumous years that yield the most unexpected and
exciting discoveries about the character of the poet and the
behavior of those who once surrounded him—wife, sister, friends,
enemies.
With the burning of his memoirs almost as soon as news of his death
reach England in May 1924, there began the sequence of impassioned
controversies that have followed one another like the links in a
chain ever since. What sort of man was the begetter of these
dramas? Unflagging in energy and acumen, Doris Lang- ley Moore
sifts the various witnesses, their motives and credentials, and not
only reveals how much questionable evidence has been accepted but
develops a corrected picture that appeals and persuades.
Drawing upon a very large amount of unpublished material, from the
Lovelace Papers, Murray manuscripts, and Hobhouse archives, she
reaches the conclusion that, as to his chroniclers, a great man has
too often fallen among thieves. The story she tells needs no
special knowledge of Byron. It is written for everyone who enjoys
literary detective work and human drama.
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