‘Mad, bad and dangerous to know’ was Lady Caroline Lamb’s summation of her lover, Lord Byron, who became the romantic corsair of English poetry. On publication of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage in 1812, the callow graduate of Cambridge ‘awoke to find himself famous’, but within three years he had been hounded out of England for his radical politics and scandalous liaisons. He died at the age of 36. Here, in a compact selection, is the essential Byron – from the rollicking stanzas of Don Juan to the penetrating and witty mots of his letters, diaries and journals. Such an overall view of Byron has never before been offered in such small compass.
