George Gordon, Lord Byron, is reputed to have said of his friend Edward John Trelawny that "Trelawny would be a good fellow if he could spell and speak the truth." As Byron explained to his mistress Teresa Guiccioli, "since [Trelawny's] adolescence he has tried to realize the type of my Corsair. He keeps the poem under his pillow and they say that in the seas of India he aimed at creating such a personality by his deeds and behaviour." But while Byron seemed skeptical about the authenticity of Trelawny's autobiography, Trelawny's other contemporaries accepted him essentially at face value, and this acceptance enabled Trelawny to pull off the most daring literary hoax of the Romantic era. Although he had compiled a relatively mediocre career as a midshipman in the British Navy until leaving (still as a midshipman) in 1812, Trelawny managed to convince the world that he had deserted...