Byron: Life and Legend

Publisher and industry reviews

UK Kirkus review

Described during his lifetime as 'mad, bad and dangerous to know', George Gordon, Lord Byron is almost as well known now as he was in his Regency heyday, and his reputation is as contested as ever. Fiona MacCarthy, author of books about Eric Gill and William Morris, is an accomplished and fastidious biographer, and this is one of the most impressive studies of the charismatic poet. MacCarthy was given exclusive access to the enormous Byron archives of the publisher John Murray, and her research into the poet's life took her to many strange and out-of-the-way sources. She is particularly acute on Byron's tangled love life, and tackles his sexuality from a modern perspective, arguing convincingly that his chief romantic interest was in beautiful youths, and that this was at the root of his departure from England and attraction towards Greece and the East, where homosexual behaviour was less taboo. MacCarthy's marshalling of all the complicated facts and conflicting rumours about Byron's life is masterly; she makes it easy for the reader to follow his path from Aberdeen through Cambridge and the salons of literary London to death at Missolonghi, and uses his letters and poems to illuminate his thoughts and feelings at every stage. In an excellent concluding section, she examines the sequence of events immediately after Byron's death, quotes a range of contemporary reactions and discusses how his reputation has developed in the two centuries since, showing how figures from Disraeli to Harold Nicolson have identified themselves with the poet. A classic biography. (Kirkus UK)

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