The Letters of Lord Byron performed by ROBERT POWELL

George Gordon Byron was born in 1788, the son of the profligate "Mad Jack" Byron and succeeded to the title in 1798 moving to the family seat of Newstead Abbey. He attended Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge where he proved to be a poor scholar, preferring boxing, the low life and poetry, publishing his first volume of poems in 1806. In 1809, at 21, he embarked on a grand tour of Europe and on his return to England he married the humourless Annabella Milbanke who gave birth to his daughter Augusta in 1815. The marriage broke down a year later and Byron went abroad never to return to England. Living in Geneva with Percy Shelley and friends, Byron had an illegitimate daughter, Allegra, through his affair with Claire Clairmont. Shortly afterwards he travelled to Italy, meeting the married Countess Teresa Gamba Guiccioli. In 1823 he left Genoa for Cephalonia to help the Greeks in their struggle for independence from the Turks. Whilst there he contracted marsh fever and died at Missolonghi on April 19, 1824.

"If you want to see into man's soul, start with this self-portrait. It's magnificent" The Guardian

"...these are a splendid introduction, leading us from his university days, setting up a bear to sit for a fellowship at Cambridge, to his very last few weeks of life in Greece, bled to death by incompetent doctors." Good Book Guide

Also available as part of the CLASSIC LETTERS & JOURNALS BOX SET, a seven-volume edition.

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