Lord Byron: Selected Letters and Journals

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 It includes a considerable number of hitherto unpublished letters and the complete text of many that were bowdlerized by former editors for a variety of reasons.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 will have more than 3,000, over 80 percent of them transcribed entirely from the original manuscripts. Byron's epistolary saga continues "con brio" in this volume. At the start of 1818 he sends off the last canto of Childe Harold and abandons himself to the debaucheries of the Carnival in Venice. At the close of 1819 he resolves to return to England but instead follows Teresa Guiccioli to Ravenna. In the meantime he writes three long poems and two cantos of Don Juan, whose bowdlerization he violently protests; he breaks off with Marianna Segati, copes with his amorous "tigress" Margarita Cogni, then falls passionately in love with the young Countess Guiccioli; he thinks seriously of emigrating to South America; he takes custody of his little daughter Allegra and becomes increasingly fond of the child. The Shelleys visit him, as does Thomas Moore, to whom he entrusts his memoirs (burned after his death). The letters to friends are amarvelous outpouring of funny anecdotes, practical talk, discussions of his poems, statements of his beliefs. The love letters are in a class by themselves.

Review :
Byron is one of the most versatile and provocative of our letter writers. More perphaps than any other, he has left us a collection of writtings that constitute a brilliant and incisive portrait of their author. Byron was at all times a performer, and his best performance, we have usually agreed, is Don Juan, the most entertaining long poem in English. We may have to think again. Leslie A. Marchand's new edition of the letters and journals suggests Byron's prose may be his strongest work. These letters play on our nerves and get under our skin in a contemporary way. -- Walter Demons "Newsweek" Byron's letters are among the most spirited in the English language, and are irresistible...Byron is a good letter writer because whether he is scoffing, arguing, or even conducting his business affairs, he has a half-laughing eye on his correspondent; although he can turn icily formal, he has mainly a talking style of worldly elegance. Byron's sinewy, funny, electrifying letters are emergency bulletins from a man operating, more often than not, on the extreme edege of despair and disgrace...We begin to read these letters as speedily as he must have written them, held by his scorn, his dissatisfaction with himself and his blazing energy. He is fiercely alive. Passionate, worldly, businesslike, scurrilous, gossipy, tender, despondent--Ýthe letters¨ exude charm and wayward intelligence, and above all the rippling energy with which this prototype of the Romantic hero lived and worked...In their candor, wit, and perceptiveness, they serve him better than any biographer. Marchand's new edition of Byron's letters and diaries is a delight to read.