by George Gordon, Lord Byron

Born in 1788, George Gordon became the sixth Baron Byron at age ten, after his greatuncle’s death. The new Lord Byron was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge; in 1807, he published his first book of poems, Hours of Idleness, which received mildly favorable notices from most literary magazines but one scathing critique from the influential Edinburgh Review. Stung, Byron launched a counterattack in his first satirical poem, “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers” (1809), which was influenced by Alexander Pope’s The Dunciad. Soon after his satire’s publication, Byron embarked on a Grand Tour of Europe, which provided him with the material for his romance, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. The first two cantos of that poem became an instant success when they appeared in print in 1812 and Byron himself became famous overnight. A disastrous marriage in 1815, followed by a scandalous separation...