SOURCE: “And Did Trelawny Lie?” Books and Bookmen, Vol. 19, No. 1, October, 1973, pp. 62-66.

In the excerpt that follows, Roberts traces some of the egregiously “fabulous” features of Trelawny's accounts of his early life and his viewing of Byron's corpse, an incident which provoked a great deal of controversy in Victorian society.

[Edward John Trelawny] was a light liar, an embroiderer of facts. He wrote two accounts of his life with Shelley and Byron. The first appeared in 1858, written after he was sixty, entitled Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron. Then, twenty years later, when an old man of eighty-five, he brought out another version, entitled Records of Shelley, Byron and the Author in which his story of Byron's lameness is changed. It is this volume which Mr David Wright has edited with great thoroughness and clarity, together with an excellent Introduction, and Notes. He holds...