E. H. Coleridge's Biography of Byron

Selected Letters and Journals:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9

Cain: A Mystery

Sardanapalus

The Island

Additional Materials:
Byron's Wit and Wisdom

Trelawny's
Recollections of the Last Days of Byron and Shelley

The slander trial of Byron's "The Vision of Judgment"
 

Following the biography by E. H. Coleridge, the first nine links are to chapters of the edition of Byron's letters and journals that I have prepared for the internet community. The fundamental source for this collection of Byron's prose has been The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, edited by Rowland E. Prothero, 6 vols. (1898-1901). Additional letters are found in Lord Byron's Correspondence, edited by John Murray, 2 vols. (1922). In choosing letters for this internet edition I have been greatly influenced by the admirable, but currently out-of-print one-volume collection by Peter Gunn, Byron: Selected Prose (Penguin 1972), as well as by the less impressive but still useful collection of Leslie Marchand in Lord Byron: Selected Letters and Journals (Belknap 1982). 

Those who find obvious typographical errors in the text are encouraged to contact the editor, Jeffrey D. Hoeper: jhoeper@astate.edu 

Byron's life continues to be written and rewritten in numerous biographies published on an almost annual basis, but I am concerned about the potential harm that many of these studies do by attempting to penetrate every secret of Byron's personal life. In doing so, they inevitably present, as if they were facts, mere speculations about Byron's many and varied love affairs. The grandfather of such misleading biographical studies is Leslie Marchand's three-volume biography and his subsequent, single-volume biography entitled Byron: A Portrait (U of Chicago P, 1970). Those who are interested in a more detailed discussion of the weaknesses of Marchand's approach are invited to read my essay on the subject.

In and effort to restore some common sense and serve the internet community, I have begun scanning and editing Ethel Colburn Mayne's sensible and elegant 1912 biography of Byron. Click here to see the early chapters.

As a result of the kind permission of Ms. Maggie Verry (nee Herlihy), I have added a facsimile of a very interesting letter by Byron. The letter concerns the publication of Polidori's "The Vampire" and contains fascinating comments by Byron about his "personal dislike to 'Vampires.'" He goes on to add, "the little acquaintance I have with them would by no means induce me to divulge their secrets."

The history of the letter is as follows: in 1826 Galignani published an edition of the Works of Lord Byron. He included with that edition a facsimile of the letter of April 27, 1819. He also included the facsimile in the 1831 edition of Byron: The Complete Poetical Works and in several subsequent editions.

The text of the letter is reprinted in vol. 4 of Prothero's The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals (Murray, 1898-1901) and in vol. 6 of Marchand's edition of Byron's Letters and Journals (Harvard, 1976). 

Click below to see this facsimile reproduction of Byron's handwriting. 

Those interested in learning more about the history of this letter will find my essay on the subject here.

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Maintained by Jeffrey Hoeper, jhoeper@astate.edu

This page was last updated On December 7, 2003