Byron before Byron

‘Courtroom encounters present you with only a fragment of a person’s story, from which you may or may not be inclined to infer the rest,’ James Lasdun wrote recently in the LRB. Last October, he set out on a road trip across America, with the aim of attending as many different ki ...  Show more

When commenting on the power and influence of the Catholic Church, Stalin is supposed to have asked: ‘how many divisions has the pope?’ Donald Trump has yet to question how many F35s Leo XIV has, but he may as well have done in his angry response to the American pope’s criticism ...  Show more

The poet Lord Byron is well known as a passionate revolutionary and a brooding hero who harbors dark secrets. But what about his playful sense of humor? In this episode, Jacke talks to Byron biographer David Ellis (Byron) about the Romantic poet's flamboyant life and work. PLUS A ...  Show more

Rumours surrounding Lord Byron’s scandalous divorce rippled throughout the world. Finally, he had no choice but to abandon England in disgrace and flee to Italy, an exile but still the most famous man in Europe. Then, in the summer of 1816 in Geneva, he met a young poet named Per ...  Show more

Lord Byron est l'un des poètes britanniques les plus illustres. Il incarne par excellence le 'héros romantique'. Et pourtant, Lord Byron était boiteux et obèse. Une image qui le hante d'autant plus que sa notoriété grandit. Toute sa vie, il va martyriser son corps qui va finir pa ...  Show more

Good God I am surely in hell! Upon Lord Byron’s return to England and the publication of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, he became one of the most notorious men in Europe and the world's first celebrity. The next period of his life would be rocked by shocking scandal, moral depravit ...  Show more