George Gordon Byron

Byron's poetry took Europe by storm in the early nineteenth century and the poems which made him a star are here represented by a selection of the early lyrics, including still popular pieces such as 'She walks in beauty' and 'We'll go a no more a-roving'. But Byron's real talent was for comedy. He is the greatest comic poet of the Romantic movement and his comic verse is here represented by Beppo, A Vision Of Judgement and selections from his greatest masterpiece, Don Juan, which satirizes the very reputation for amourous adventures which helped to make Byron himself famous.

This volume completes the Oxford English Texts edition of Byron's Poetical Works. Included here are the poems from the last two years of Byron's life, 1823-4, when he decided to leave Italy to join the Greeks in their struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire. Three major works date from this period - the neglected late satire, The Age of Bronze; Byron's treatment of the Bounty mutiny, The Island; and his greatest lyric poem, `January 22nd 1824. Messalonghi. On this day I complete my thirty-sixth year.' Several new poems are added to the corpus, two in the regular sequence of works set down in 1980, and three others in Appendix C. An important feature of this volume is its set of appendices dealing with the corpus of Byron's work. Of special signficance are those detailing all relevant information about attributed and spurious Byron poems. This material is important not only for establishing a reliable corpus of the work, but also as a fundamental resource for the study of the Byron legend. Included here are the texts of newly authenticated poems and of attributed poems which have some reasonable claim to authenticity, as well as a list of unauthentic poems. The latter augments the list given in Volume I of this edition. This material is followed by a discussion of Byron forgeries; and a list of corrections and additions to Volumes I-V. This volume also contains comprehensive indexes of titles, of first lines, and of all the poems by volume and page number, and a general index.

For the first time all Byron's miscellaneous prose writings are collected together, including his speeches in the House of Lords, short stories, reviews, critical articles, and Armenian translations, as well as such shorter pieces as memoranda, notes, reminiscences, and marginalia. Although some of this material has been published before - most notably in the appendices to Prothero's edition of the Letters and Journals (1898-1901) - a considerable proportion is here published for the first time. For the first time too, the prose works are presented with full scholarly apparatus. The texts are reproduced from their original manuscripts wherever these are still extant; and the notes provide an introduction to each item, detailing the circumstances of its composition, its publication history, and its historical and literary background, as well as providing comprehensive annotation of individual points of obscurity, allusions, and other matters of content.

NB - VOL VII HAS THE BLURB FOR BOTH VOLS - ELSP89 This volume is the penultimate one in the Oxford English Texts Byron, described by Ian Jack as 'one of the finest editions we have of any of the Romantic poets'. It contains all the works of 1821 and 1822, including all Byron's late plays - The Two Foscari, Sardanapalus, Cair: A Mystery, (publication of which gave rise to threats of prosecution against the publisher, John Murray), and the unfinished The Deformed Transformed. As usual, the works are given with textual annotation at the foot of the page, and there is a full introdution and extensive annotation at the end of the volume.

The Complete Poetical Works Volume 5: Don Juan

This is volume four of the landmark edition of Byron's poetry. Indispensable for Byron scholars, it represents the most comprehensive editing of his poetry ever undertaken.

George Gordon Byron was a superb letter-writer: almost all his letters, whatever the subject or whoever the recipient, are enlivened by his wit, his irony, his honesty, and the sharpness of his observation of people. They provide a vivid self-portrait of the man who, of all his contemporaries, seems to express attitudes and feelings most in tune with the twentieth century. In addition, they offer a mirror of his own time. This first collected edition of all Byron's known letters supersedes Prothero's incomplete edition at the turn of the century. It includes a considerable number of hitherto unpublished letters and the complete text of many that were bowdlerized by former editors for a variety of reasons. Prothero's edition included 1,198 letters. This edition has more than 3,000, over 80 percent of them transcribed entirely from the original manuscripts. The final volume of this splendid edition contains a comprehensive index to the contents of the preceding volumes--the several thousand letters, the journals, the notes and biographical sketches. The index is prefaced by a generous selection of Byron's aphorisms, bons mots, and memorable statements, culled by Leslie Marchand from the letters and journals and arranged under subject headings.

George Gordon Byron was a superb letter-writer: almost all his letters, whatever the subject or whoever the recipient, are enlivened by his wit, his irony, his honesty, and the sharpness of his observation of people. They provide a vivid self-portrait of the man who, of all his contemporaries, seems to express attitudes and feelings most in tune with the twentieth century. In addition, they offer a mirror of his own time. This first collected edition of all Byron's known letters supersedes Prothero's incomplete edition at the turn of the century. It includes a considerable number of hitherto unpublished letters and the complete text of many that were bowdlerized by former editors for a variety of reasons. Prothero's edition included 1,198 letters. This edition has more than 3,000, over 80 percent of them transcribed entirely from the original manuscripts. An enchanting epistolary saga ends with the publication of this volume. Volume XI: 'For freedom's battle' contains the letters Byron wrote from Greece between August 1823 and April 9, 1824, ten days before his death. Also included are over fifty letters dating from 1807 to 1820 that have come to light since Leslie A. Marchand began this project ten years ago. In the letters from Greece a new set of correspondents appears, and a new tone is apparent. Although occasionally playful, Byron is preoccupied with the revolution and his efforts to unite the Greeks in a common cause despite their discord. His chief correspondents are his business agents in the islands and his banker friend in Genoa, Charles Barry, to whom he writes frank accounts of daily affairs. His letters to Hobhouse and to John Bowring attempt to give a realistic picture of the Greek struggle. To Teresa Guiccioli he writes only short, dutiful postscripts in English to the longer letters addressed to her brother. Among the additional letters that became available too late to take their chronological place in the earlier volumes are those discovered in 1976, locked in a trunk at Barclays Bank; all but one of these fourteen letters were written to Scrope Davies, Byron's witty friend and drinking companion.

The Complete Poetical Works Volume 3

The Complete Poetical Works Volume 3

To be completed in six volumes, this work represents the first comprehensive re-editing of Byron's poetry in over 75 years. The editor's commentaries about the texts and contexts of Byron's works reflect the access to a vast amount of original documents and manuscripts.

George Gordon Byron was a superb letter-writer: almost all his letters, whatever the subject or whoever the recipient, are enlivened by his wit, his irony, his honesty, and the sharpness of his observation of people. They provide a vivid self-portrait of the man who, of all his contemporaries, seems to express attitudes and feelings most in tune with the twentieth century. In addition, they offer a mirror of his own time. This first collected edition of all Byron's known letters supersedes Prothero's incomplete edition at the turn of the century. It includes a considerable number of hitherto unpublished letters and the complete text of many that were bowdlerized by former editors for a variety of reasons. Prothero's edition included 1,198 letters. This edition has more than 3,000, over 80 percent of them transcribed entirely from the original manuscripts. Byron's brilliant epistolary saga approaches its end in this last full volume of his letters, from early October 1822 to his fateful departure for Greece in July 1823. During these months he was living in Genoa, with Teresa and her father and brother occupying an apartment in his house. Mary Shelley was staying with the Hunts in a house some distance away. Byron enlarged his circle of English acquaintances, but his liveliest correspondence was still with John Murray, Kinnaird, Hobhouse, and Moore. Of special interest are his frank letters, half flirtatious, to Lady Hardy, those to Trelawny and Mary Shelley, and a growing number to Leigh Hunt and his brother John (publisher of The Liberal and of Byron's poems after his break with Murray), discussing inter alia his thoughts about the continuation of Don Juan. There is irony in Byron's advice for a reconciliation between Webster and his wife Frances, whose matrimonial virtue Byron was proud to have spared in England. And there is pathos in his letters to his half-sister urging her and her children to join him in Italy, unaware that his missives to Augusta and her replies were scrutinized by Lady Byron. From April on, the letters are full of concern for support of the Greek forces and preparations for his departure.

The Complete Poetical Works Volume 2

Byron's personal writings reveal vividly his family relationships, friendships, interests, and concerns

George Gordon Byron was a superb letter-writer: almost all his letters, whatever the subject or whoever the recipient, are enlivened by his wit, his irony, his honesty, and the sharpness of his observation of people. They provide a vivid self-portrait of the man who, of all his contemporaries, seems to express attitudes and feelings most in tune with the twentieth century. In addition, they offer a mirror of his own time. This first collected edition of all Byron's known letters supersedes Prothero's incomplete edition at the turn of the century. It includes a considerable number of hitherto unpublished letters and the complete text of many that were bowdlerized by former editors for a variety of reasons. Prothero's edition included 1,198 letters. This edition has more than 3,000, over 80 percent of them transcribed entirely from the original manuscripts. Born for Opposition opens with Byron in Ravenna, in 1821. His passion for the Countess Guiccioli is subsiding into playful fondness, and he confesses to his sister Augusta that he is not "so furiously in love as at first." Italy, meanwhile, is afire with the revolutionary activities of the Carbonari, which Byron sees as "the very poetry of politics." His journal, written while the insurrection grew, is a remarkable record of his reading and reflections while awaiting the sounds of gunfire. In spite of the turmoil, Byron stuck fast to his work. By the end of this volume, in October 1821, he is established in Pisa, having written Sardanapalus, Cain, and The Vision of Judgement.