Fiona MacCarthy makes a breakthrough in interpreting Byron's life and poetry drawing on John Murray's world-famous archive. She brings a fresh eye to his early years: his childhood in Scotland, embattled relations with his mother, the effect of his deformed foot on his development. She traces his early travels in the Mediterranean and the East, throwing light on his relationships with adolescent boys - a hidden subject in earlier biographies. While paying due attention to the compelling tragicomedy of Byron's marriage, his incestuous love for his half-sister Augusta and the clamorous attention of his female fans, she gives a new importance to his close male friendships, in particular that with his publisher John Murray. She tells the full story of their famous disagreement, ending as a rift between them as Byron's poetry became more recklessly controversial. Byron was a celebrity in his own lifetime, becoming a 'superstar' in 1812, after the publication of Childe Harold. The Byron legend grew to unprecedented proportions after his death in the Greek War of Independence at the age of thirty-six. The problem for a biographer is sifting the truth from the sentimental, the self-serving and the spurious. Fiona MacCarthy has overcome this to produce an immaculately researched biography, which is also her refreshing personal view.

This eBook edition of "The Complete Works of Lord Byron (Inlcuding Biography)" has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices.Table of contents: The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 1: Fugitive Pieces Poems on Various Occasions Hours of Idleness: Damœtas To Marion Oscar of Alva From Anacreon Lachin y Gair To Romance The Death of Calmar and Orla Poems Original and Translated Early Poems from Various Sources The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 2: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 3: Poems 1809–1813 The Giaour The Bride of Abydos The Corsair Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte Lara Hebrew Melodies: She walks in Beauty The Harp the Monarch Minstrel swept If that High World The Wild Gazelle Oh! weep for those On Jordan's Banks Jeptha's Daughter Oh! snatched away in Beauty's Bloom My Soul is Dark I saw thee weep Thy Days are done Saul Song of Saul before his Last Battle "All is Vanity, saith the Preacher" When Coldness wraps this Suffering Clay Vision of Belshazzar Sun of the Sleepless! Were my Bosom as False as thou deem'st it to be Herod's Lament for Mariamne On the Day of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus By the Rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept "By the Waters of Babylon" The Destruction of Sennacherib… A Spirit passed before me Poems 1814–1816 The Siege of Corinth Parisina Poems of the Separation The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 4: The Prisoner of Chillon Poems of July—September, 1816: The Dream Darkness Churchill's Grave Prometheus Monody on the Death of the Right Hon. R. B. Sheridan Manfred The Lament of Tasso Beppo Ode on Venice Mazeppa The Prophecy of Dante The Morgante Maggiore of Pulci Francesca of Rimini Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice The Vision of Judgment Poems 1816-1823 The Blues The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 5: Sardanapalus The Two Foscari Cain Heaven and Earth Werner; or, The Inheritance The Deformed Transformed The Age of Bronze The Island The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 6: Don Juan The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7: Jeux d'Esprit and Minor Poems, 1798–1824: Letters and Journals of Lord Byron Biographies: Byron by John Nichol The Life of Lord Byron by John Galt