Alongside Jane Austen, the Bront? 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.

Introduction; Note on the Text and Short Titles; A Biographical Bibliography; 1 Childhood, Boyhood, Youth: January 1788-June 1809; 2 The Grand Tour: June 1809-July 1811; 3 Childe Harold and Caroline Lamb: July 1811-June 1813; 4 The Giaour and Augusta Leigh: June 1813-July 1814; 5 Marriage and Separation: August 1814-April 1816; 6 Exile: April-November 1816; 7 Venice and Rome: November 1816-June 1818; 8 Don Juan and Teresa Guiccioli: July 1818-December 1819; 9 Ravenna: December 1819-October 1821; 10 Pisa: October 1821-September 1822; 11 Genoa: October 1822-July 1823; 12 Greece: August 1823-April 1824; Index