George Gordon, Lord Byron: 1788-1824
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Acquires his title at age
10 from his great-uncle
the “Wicked Lord Byron.”
Moves with his mother to
Newstead Abbey, near
Nottingham
1801: attends Harrow
1805: Cambridge
Meets his half sister
Augusta during this
period.
1807: First volume of
poetry Hours of Idleness.
Byron: 1807-1815
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1807: Byron departs on his
grand tour—to Lisbon, Spain,
Greece and Albania. Begins
work on Childe Harold’s
Pilgrimage.
1810: Visits Turkey.
1811: At 24, Byron returns to
London.
1812: The first two cantos of
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
published.
1814: The Corsair
1815: Hebrew Melodies
The “mad-bad- and dangerous” Lord
Byron
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Liaisons with Lady
Caroline Lamb; Lady
Oxford.
Scandal and gossip
about his relationship
with Augusta, whose child
is named Medora
(heroine of The Corsair).
1815: Marries Annabella
Milbanke.
Annabella leaves a few
weeks after the birth of
Augusta Ada
Byron: 1816-1819
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1816: Byron settles in
Geneva, near Percy and
Mary Shelley, and Claire
Clairmont.
1817: begins work on
Manfred. Leaves for
Venice. Continues work
on the third and fourth
cantos of Childe Harold.
Sells Newstead Abbey for
£ 94,500
1819: First two cantos of
Don Juan.
Byron: 1819-1824
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1819: Meets Countess Teresa
Guiccioli and her Carbonari
family.
1821: Publishes another
mystery play, Cain.
Robert Southey follows with
his comment on “the Satanic
School.”
Byron publishes The Vision of
Judgment a rebuttal to
Southey.
1823: Joins the Greek war of
independence.
Falls ill in 1824 and dies in
April at the age of 36.
The Byronic Hero
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Goethe’s Faust Part one is
published in 1808.
In Geneva, Byron meets M.G.
Lewis author of The Monk who
translates Faust.
Part Two of Goethe’s Faust is
published posthumously in
1832.
The figure of Goethe’s
Euphorion is based on Byron.
Goethe: “Byron is not antique
and is not romantic, but he is
the present day itself. Such a
one I had to have. Moreover, he
was just my man on account of
his unsatisfied nature and of his
warlike bent, which led him to
his doom at Missolonghi.”
Lady Caroline Lamb
Lady Augusta Leigh
Annabella Milbanke
Augusta Ada Byron (remembered as the first
computer programmer.)
Countess Teresa Guccioli