Overview

Alongside 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 Greek War of Independence.The letters and journals are selected, introduced, and annotated to provide a running narrative of the life and career of his remarkable man in his own unmistakable words.

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9780198722557

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Reviews

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

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

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

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

Author Information

Richard Lansdown took his bachelor's and doctoral degrees at University College, London. After two years teaching literature in Finland he moved to Australia, where he has taught in New South Wales and Tropical North Queensland, where he still lives and works. He has written two other studies of Lord Byron, and numerous articles on Romantic and Nineteenth-Century literature.

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