SOURCE: “The Corsair in Person,” The Times Literary Supplement, No. 3799, December 27, 1974, p. 1461.

In the following review of Adventures of a Younger Son, Jacobus emphasizes the extent to which Trelawny believed in his own Romantic fantasies, particularly regarding his early adventures.

“If we could only make Trelawny wash his hands and speak the truth we could make a gentleman of him.” Byron—by now cultivating a more sophisticated image—was understandably embarrassed when the personification of his own Corsair turned up at Pisa. It was the Shelleys who fell for his piratical past and tall stories. Byron warned that they would mould him into a Frankenstein monster; and the monstrous side of Trelawny was certainly on view for Mary Shelley: “He tells strange stories of himself, horrific ones, so that they harrow one up.”

Trelawny is notorious for his account of Byron's corpse (“Both his feet were clubbed”) but...