Byron's Letters and Journals

The first volume of Byron’s letters and journals covers his early years and includes his first pilgrimage to Greece and to the East, ending with his last letter from Constantinople on July 4, 1810, before his departure for Athens.

The second volume of Byron’s letters embraces his second year in Greece, his revealing accounts to Hobhouse and others of his life in Athens, his visit to Veli Pasha, and his return by Malta to England. It covers the period of the loss of his mother and of several of his closest friends, of his first acquaintance with Moore and Rogers, his maiden speech in the House of Lords, the publication of Childe Harold, and the resulting fame that brought him into Whig society. It marks the beginning of his correspondence with Lady Melbourne, who became the confidante of his liaisons with Lady Caroline Lamb and Lady Oxford, and who forwarded his first (rejected) proposal to Annabella Milbanke.

The third volume starts with Byron at the first crest of his fame following the publication of Childe Harold. It includes his literary letters to Tom Moore, frank and intimate ones to Hobhouse, pungent ones to Hanson and Murray, and his lively and amusing missives to Lady Melbourne, his confidante through all his love affairs.

In this volume Byron corresponds with writers such as Thomas Moore, Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, and “Monk” Lewis; and with John Murray about the publication of The Corsair, Lara, and The Hebrew Melodies. The crucial events of his private life at this time are his engagement to Anabella Milbanke and their marriage early in 1815.

In the fifth installment of this marvelous serial story, we read about Byron’s separation from his wife. Besides his pleading letters to Annabella asking her to reconsider, there are level-headed letters to Murray and Hobhouse and Hunt and Rogers—all written during the tempestuous time before his final departure from England.

Byron’s epistolary saga continues con brio in this volume. At the start of 1818 he sends off the last canto of Childe Harold and abandons himself to the debaucheries of the Carnival in Venice. At the close of 1819 he resolves to return to England but instead follows Teresa Guiccioli to Ravenna.

George Gordon Byron’s letters provide a vivid self-portrait of the man who, of all his contemporaries, seems to express attitudes and feelings most in tune with the twentieth century. Readers and reviewers have responded with great enthusiasm to Leslie Marchand’s new unexpurgated edition.

Volume VIII opens with Byron in Ravenna, in 1821. His passion for the Countess Guiccioli is subsiding into playful fondness, and he confesses to his sister Augusta that he is not “so furiously in love as at first.” Italy, meanwhile, is afire with the revolutionary activities of the Carbornari, which Byron sees as “the very poetry of politics.”

The ninth volume in Leslie Marchand’s highly acclaimed, unexpurgated edition of Byron’s letters finds the poet in Pisa with Teresa Guiccioli. His unique journal, “Detached Thoughts,” is finished shortly after his arrival in November 1821, and he is drawn into Shelley’s circle (including Edward Williams, Thomas Medwin, John Taaffe, and later Trelawny). Another tragedy, the death of his daughter Allegra, leaves him deeply affected, and he refers to it time and time again. Money problems continue to plague him, as do suspicions surrounding his political activities. Following a fracas with a half-drunken dragoon, Byron is forced to leave Pisa and install himself and Teresa in a villa near Leghorn. His correspondence with his publisher reveals increasing displeasure with Murray’s delays, indecision, and anxiety over Don Juan, but his output of verse is in no way lessened; by the end of this volume in 1822, he has finished six more cantos for Don Juan as well as other poems.

Living in Genoa with Teresa, Byron’s liveliest correspondence was with John Murray, Kinnaird, Hobhouse, and Moore. Of interest are his frank letters to Lady Hardy, those to Trelawny and Mary Shelley, and a growing number to Leigh Hunt and his brother John (publisher of The Liberal and Byron’s poems after his break with Murray) on Don Juan.

Volume XI contains the letters Byron wrote from Greece between August 1823 and April 9, 1824, ten days before his death. Also included are over fifty letters dating from 1807 to 1820 that have come to light since Leslie A. Marchand began this project ten years ago. In the letters from Greece a new set of correspondents appears, and a new tone is apparent. Although occasionally playful, Byron is preoccupied with the revolution and his efforts to unite the Greeks in a common cause despite their discord.

The final volume of this splendid edition contains a comprehensive index to the contents of the preceding volumes—the several thousand letters, the journals, the notes and biographical sketches. The index is prefaced by a generous selection of Byron’s aphorisms, bons mots, and memorable statements, culled by Leslie A. Marchand from the letters and journals and arranged under subject headings.