This book offers a new history and theory of modern celebrity. It argues that celebrity is a cultural apparatus that emerged in response to the Romantic industrialization of print and culture. It investigates the often strained interactions of artistic endeavour and commercial enterprise, and the place of celebrity culture in history of the self.

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This book provides one case study in a history that has yet to be written, of a phenomenon that has yet to be adequately theorised. It argues that modern celebrity culture began in the Romantic period, and that Lord Byron should be understood as one of its earliest examples and most astute critics. Tom Mole approaches celebrity as a cultural apparatus - consisting of the relations between an individual, an industry and an audience - that took shape in response to the industrialised print culture of the Romantic period. Under that rubric he investigates the often strained interactions of artistic endeavour and commercial enterprise, the material conditions of Byron's publications, and the place of celebrity culture in the history of the self. Byron's Romantic Celebrity sheds new light on the Romantic poetics of personality by showing how commercial collaboration and creative compromise made a public profile possible.

This book examines the relationship between Lord Byron's life and work, and the Regency culture of scandal.

Argues that Byron’s popularity marked the beginning of celebrity as a cultural identity.

*Includes pictures *Includes quotes *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "I am such a strange mélange of good and evil that it would be difficult to describe me." - Lord Byron "Mad, bad, and dangerous to know." - Lady Caroline Lamb's description of Lord Byron Lord Byron's very name conjures up visions of the Romantic movement and outlandishly dressed bohemians, for if Alfred, Lord Tennyson was the poetic darling of the masses, Byron was the hero of the hedonists. While the traditional English literary hero was a nobleman rescuing a damsel in distress, Byron created the anti-hero, a man plagued by self-doubt and hidden sorrow. At the same time, his hero was also capable of facing reality once he had wrestled through his own angst, and even of occasionally acting nobly in the great tradition of the author's Puritan forebears. Whereas poets like Wordsworth and Browning were easy to love, Lord Byron inspired a certain amount of fear among the upper classes, and pious mothers were reluctant to let their daughters read his work. In a manner more appropriate to the 21st century than the 19th, Lord Byron was a man true to his own beliefs, supporting the rights of the oppressed even while enjoying all the benefits offered to him as a member of the British aristocracy. If Byron himself was eclectic in his tastes and character, his poetry was even more so, for he could feature satiric pieces poking fun at the status quo and historical renditions of ancient battles fought with nobility and valor, all in the same volume. Like so many other writers, he used poetry to explore his own most deeply guarded secrets, in one poem playing in first person the dramatic hero and in another the troubled penitent. He was sometimes funny, sometimes lyrical, and sometimes verbose, but he was always interesting, and that is what allowed him to become one of the most famous writers of all time, almost against his own will, and despite his premature death. Lord Byron: The Life and Legacy of the Most Famous Romantic Poet chronicles the life and work that made Lord Byron one of history's most famous poets. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Lord Byron like never before.

Poet, celebrity, and revolutionary, Lord (George Gordon) Byron was one of the most influential and controversial figures of the first half of the nineteenth century, his distinctive, deeply felt work comprising one of the enduring high points of Romantic literature. From “Manfred,” with its evocation of the figure that came to be called the “Byronic hero,” to the melancholy “Childe Harold,” to the satirical masterpiece “Don Juan” (presented here in judiciously selected form), this Modern Library Paperback Classic includes all of the essential Byron.