"The best biography of Lord Byron ever written," according to Poet
Laureate W. S. Merwin, is now back in print after decades.
Of the hundreds of books on Byron and his work, not one has been devoted
to the immediate aftermath of his life; and yet it is these first twenty
posthumous years that yield the most unexpected and exciting discoveries
about the character of the poet and the behavior of those who once
surrounded him--wife, sister, friends, enemies.
With the burning of his memoirs almost as soon as news of his death
reach England in May 1924, there began the sequence of impassioned
controversies that have followed one another like the links in a chain
ever since. What sort of man was the begetter of these dramas?
Unflagging in energy and acumen, Doris Lang- ley Moore sifts the various
witnesses, their motives and credentials, and not only reveals how much
questionable evidence has been accepted but develops a corrected picture
that appeals and persuades.
Drawing upon a very large amount of unpublished material, from the
Lovelace Papers, Murray manuscripts, and Hobhouse archives, she reaches
the conclusion that, as to his chroniclers, a great man has too often
fallen among thieves. The story she tells needs no special knowledge of
Byron. It is written for everyone who enjoys literary detective work and
human drama.
