Ocean State Libraries

Poet, celebrity, and revolutionary, Lord (George Gordon) Byron was one of the most influential and controversial figures of the first half of the nineteenth century, his distinctive, deeply felt work comprising one of the enduring high points of Romantic literature. From "Manfred," with its evocation of the figure that came to be called the "Byronic hero," to the melancholy "Childe Harold," to the satirical masterpiece "Don Juan" (presented here in...

George Gordon Byron was born on 22 January 1788 and he inherited the barony in 1798. He went to school in Dulwich, and then in 1801 to Harrow. In 1805 he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, later gaining a reputation in London for his startling good looks and extravagant behaviour. His first collection of poems, Hours of Idleness (1807), was not well received, but with the publication of the first two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812)...

"The text of this present edition is unchanged from that prepared by the original editor of the volume, Paul Elmer More, just prior to the turn of the century, which in turn was based on the fourteen-volume edition of The works of Lord Byron (with his letters and journals, and his life, by Thomas Moore, Esq.) published in 1832 by Byron's long-time publisher John Murray."--From Editor's note.