Author Description

Charismatic, brilliant, dissolute and self-destructive, the legendary Lord Byron led an extraordinary life filled with scandal and intrigue. Peter Quennell's lively, colourful study concentrates on the most important and dramatic years of his life, July 1811 to April 1816, when he reached the peak of his fame as the undisputed lion of London society. It begins with Byron's return to England from his travels in the Mediterranean, when the subsequent publication of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" made him an overnight celebrity. He became the showman of the Romantic movement, notorious for his irresistible beauty and his melancholic, passionate nature. We also follow his love affair with Lady Caroline Lamb, who coined the immortal phrase "mad, bad and dangerous to know"; his strange and tortured relationshp with his half-sister Augusta Leigh; his failed marriage to the long-suffering Annabella Milbanke; and ends with the tragic social downfall that prompted him to leave England forever.