This authoritative edition was originally published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the general editorship of Frank Kermode. It brings together a unique combination of Byron's poetry and prose - all the major poems, complemented by important letters, journals, and conversations - to give the essence of his work and thinking.
The book focuses on the scarcity and rising costs of early literature from the 1900s and earlier. It highlights the effort to republish these classic works in affordable, high-quality editions, preserving the original text and artwork. This initiative aims to make these timeless pieces more accessible to readers today.
Byron was a legend in his own lifetime and the dominant influence on the Romantic movement. The most European of the English writers in an age of revolution, Byron was deeply involved in contemporary events, and a passionate supporter of the struggle for Greek independence. Describing himself as `born for opposition', his work was largely directed against what he called the `cant political, cant poetical, and cant moral' of the English and European worlds. He was rocketed to fame by the publication of Childe Harold in 1812, and lionized by society until his departure from England amid a whirlpool of private gossip and newspaper scandal in 1816. His is, in every sense, a poetry of experience, and a Romantic emphasis on the personality of the poet is the hallmark of all his verse. Relishing humour and irony, daring and flamboyant, sardonic yet idealistic, his work encompasses a sweeping range of topics, subjects, and models, embracing the most traditional and the most experimental poetic forms. This selection of the poetical works, chosen from the Oxford Authors critical edition, includes such masterpieces as The Corsair, Manfred, Bebbo, and Don Juan. There are many other less familiar works and shorter lyrics, and Jerome J. McGann's introduction and notes give fascinating insight into Byron's world.
Byron's poetry took Europe by storm in the early nineteenth century. He is a comic poet of the Romantic movement. This book deals with his life and work.
Byron's free-spirited lifestyle combined with his rare poetic gift to make him one of the foremost figures of the Romantic Era. This collection of his poems, richly varied in mood and content, captures the essence of his great achievement. Among the thirty-one poems included are convivial song-like poems, love poems, travel poems, humorous and satiric poems. Shorter works such as the famous "She Walks in Beauty," "Stanzas to Augusta" and "So We'll Go No More a Roving" are well represented. Also here are important longer works — "The Prisoner of Chillon," "Beppo," "The Vision of Judgment," all unabridged — and lyrics excerpted from Don Juan, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, and the play Manfred. Taken together, these are poems that draw readers quickly into the passions, humors, and convictions of a poet whose life and work truly embodied the Romantic spirit.
John William Polidori, linked to the Romantic movement, is recognized as the pioneer of vampire fiction with his 1819 short story 'The Vampyre.' This collection features early and rare vampire stories from before the 1900s, which are now hard to find and costly. The republished editions maintain the original text and artwork, making these classic works accessible and affordable for contemporary readers.
This edition made to fit most pockets and formatted for a smaller page. Makes a great traveling companion. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a classic narrative poem in four parts. It describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks for distraction in foreign lands. Byron, through Childe Harold, regrets his wasted early youth and so re-designs himself on this pilgrimage, which takes him through Portugal, the Mediterranean and Aegean Sea between 1809 and 1811. Many of the events are said to be auto-biographical, with Byron himself initially hesitating to publish the first two cantos of the poem as he felt it revealed too much of himself.
Mad bad and dangerous to known'Byron is often cast as the anti-hero of romantic literature. This selection ranges from the exuberant sexual enery of Don Juan to the wistful When We Two Parted.
Probably few subjects fitted Byron's particular talents better than Don Juan.In this rambling, exuberant, conversational poem, the travels of Don Juan are used as a vehicle for some of the most lively and acute commentaries on human societies and behaviour in the language. The manner is what Goethe called 'a cultured comic language'-a genre which he regarded as not possible in Geman and which he felt Byron managed superbly.
