Byron: A Life in Ten Letters

Andrew Stauffer is Professor of English at the University of Virginia and the President of the Byron Society of America. He is the author of Anger, Revolution, and Romanticism (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and of Book Traces: Nineteenth-Century Readers and the Future of the Library (2020), which was the first recipient in 2021 of the inaugural Marilyn Gaull Book Award of the Wordsworth-Coleridge Association. He is in addition the co-editor of Lord Byron: Selected Writings (2023).

• Introduction; 1. A Spice of Every Thing: To Elizabeth Pigot, 26 October 1807, Trinity College, Cambridge; 2. The Air of Greece: To Henry Drury, 3 May 1810, Salsette Frigate in the Dardanelles off Abydos, Turkey; 3. Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know: To Lady Melbourne, 8 October 1813, Aston Hall, Rotherham, Yorkshire; 4. Fare Thee Well: To Lady Byron, 8 February 1816, 13 Piccadilly Terrace, London; 5. Haunted Summer: To Augusta Leigh, 8 September 1816, Villa Diodati, Cologny, near Geneva; 6. The Greenest Isle of My Imagination: To John Murray, 1 August 1819, Ravenna / Venice; 7. Strictest Adultery: To Countess Teresa Guiccioli, 7 December 1819, Venice; 8. A Funeral Pile: To Thomas Moore, 27 August 1822, Pisa; 9. To Join the Greeks: To John Cam Hobhouse, 7 April 1823, Casa Saluzzo, Albaro, near Genoa; 10. Pilgrim of Eternity: To John Murray, 25 February 1824, Messolonghi; After Byron.

'This new biography of Byron is a miracle of condensation; by putting the letters centre-stage, Professor Stauffer manages to let his subject speak for himself in all the contradictory range of his moods and circumstances – at the same time as elegantly and unobtrusively shaping a narrative that leaps off the page.' Roderick Beaton, Emeritus Koraes Professor of Modern Greek & Byzantine History, Language & Literature, King's College London