![Lord Byron by Henry Pierce Bone](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Lord_Byron_by_Henry_Pierce_Bone.jpg)
Byron's Memoirs, written between 1818 and 1821 but never published and destroyed soon after his death, recounted at full-length his life, loves and opinions. He gave the manuscript to the poet
Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore (28 May 1779 – 25 February 1852) was an Irish writer, poet, and lyricist celebrated for his ''Irish Melodies''. Their setting of English-language verse to old Irish tunes marked the transition in popular Irish culture from Irish ...
, who in turn sold it to
John Murray with the intention that it should eventually be published. On
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...
's death in 1824, Moore, Murray,
John Cam Hobhouse
John Cam Hobhouse, 1st Baron Broughton, (27 June 1786 – 3 June 1869), known as Sir John Hobhouse, Bt, from 1831 to 1851, was an English politician and diarist.
Early life
Born at Redland near Bristol, Broughton was the eldest son of Sir ...
, and other friends who were concerned for his reputation gathered together and burned the original manuscript and the only known copy of it, in what has been called the greatest literary crime in history.
Since the Memoirs are lost beyond recovery, only the vaguest idea of their nature can be gathered from the mutually inconsistent testimony of those contemporaries of Byron who read them in manuscript. It is hard to judge how sexually explicit they were, some witnesses maintaining that they were perfectly fit for anyone to read and others that they were far too scabrous ever to be published.
Composition
As early as 1809, while travelling in
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
with his friend
John Cam Hobhouse
John Cam Hobhouse, 1st Baron Broughton, (27 June 1786 – 3 June 1869), known as Sir John Hobhouse, Bt, from 1831 to 1851, was an English politician and diarist.
Early life
Born at Redland near Bristol, Broughton was the eldest son of Sir ...
, Byron wrote an account of his life and thoughts. Hobhouse persuaded him to destroy this document, though Byron protested that the world was being robbed of a treat.
Byron again began to consider an autobiography in 1818. On 10 July he wrote from
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
in
a letter to his publisher
John Murray in London,
I think of writing (for your full edition) some memoirs of my life to prefix to them – upon the same model (though far enough I fear from reaching it) as that of Gifford – Hume – &c and this without any intention of making disclosures or remarks upon living people which would be unpleasant to them...I have ''materials'' in plenty - but the greater part of these could not be used by ''me'' – nor for three hundred years to come – however there is enough without these...to make you a good preface for such an edition as you meditate – but this by the way – I have not made up my mind.
On 3 August he told Murray that he had made good progress with the Memoirs, and on 26 August that they were nearly finished, but that they were now too long and too indiscreet to be publishable as a preface: "I shall keep it among my papers – it will be a kind of Guide post in case of death – and prevent some of the lies which would otherwise be told".
![Letter_by_Byron](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Letter_by_Byron.jpg)
On 29 October 1819 he announced that he had given the Memoirs, which took his story as far as 1816, to his friend
Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore (28 May 1779 – 25 February 1852) was an Irish writer, poet, and lyricist celebrated for his ''Irish Melodies''. Their setting of English-language verse to old Irish tunes marked the transition in popular Irish culture from Irish ...
, the poet, and repeated that they were "
otfor publication during my life – but when I am cold – you may do what you please." Moore accepted this restriction, and good-humouredly looked forward to bequeathing the book to his son, "who shall astonish the latter days of the nineteenth century with it". Between 1820 and 1821 Byron added a second portion, bringing the Memoirs to a length of at least 120,000 words. The complete Memoirs, all in Moore's possession, were handed out by him to a large number of readers in the fashionable world, so many indeed that the manuscripts were in danger of falling apart from overuse, so that Moore was obliged to have a copy made. In July 1821, with Byron's blessing, Moore sold the manuscript and the copy to Murray for the enormous sum of £2100, but then Byron had second thoughts and the deal was renegotiated to give Moore and himself the power to buy back the Memoirs during Byron's lifetime. They still remained in manuscript when Byron died on 19 April 1824 at
Missolonghi
Missolonghi or Messolonghi ( el, Μεσολόγγι, ) is a municipality of 34,416 people (according to the 2011 census) in western Greece. The town is the capital of Aetolia-Acarnania regional unit, and the seat of the municipality of Iera Polis ...
in Greece.
Destruction
Within minutes of hearing that Byron was dead Hobhouse began to plan the destruction of the manuscripts, motivated perhaps by a feeling that all memoirs were by definition slightly improper; by fear of being associated with such a libertine as Byron, now that he himself was a respectable MP; or by resentment that they had been entrusted to Moore, Hobhouse's rival in Byron's friendship. On approaching John Murray, who he supposed might want to profit by publishing them, he found to his surprise that Murray was just as keen as himself to see them burned. Moore initially favoured buying back the manuscript from Murray and handing it over to Augusta Leigh, Byron's half-sister, for destruction, but then he changed his mind and decided instead that with the excision of all improper passages Byron's reputation would be sufficiently secured. Besides, he argued, Byron had told him that he could "show them to the elect", and since he had actually done so there could be no further harm in publishing them. A meeting was held at Hobhouse's chambers in
Albany to thrash the matter out. Present were Moore, Hobhouse,
Henry Luttrell (a friend of Moore's, inclined to support him whatever he decided), and John Murray. All of them were under the mistaken impression, not having actually consulted the legal documents in the case, that Moore might still have some rights in the matter, whereas in fact Byron's death had rendered the Memoirs the absolute property of John Murray, to deal with as he saw fit. Murray pointed out that William Gifford, who had read the Memoirs, was of the opinion that they would make Byron's name infamous forever. They argued so fiercely that Moore even spoke of settling the matter by fighting a duel with Murray. The meeting was then adjourned to Murray's house in
Albemarle Street
Albemarle Street is a street in Mayfair in central London, off Piccadilly. It has historic associations with Lord Byron, whose publisher John Murray was based here, and Oscar Wilde, a member of the Albemarle Club, where an insult he received ...
, where Wilmot Horton, acting for Byron's half-sister
Augusta Leigh
Augusta Maria Leigh (''née'' Byron; 26 January 1783 – 12 October 1851) was the only daughter of John "Mad Jack" Byron, the poet Lord Byron's father, by his first wife, Amelia, née Darcy (Lady Conyers in her own right and the divorced wife ...
, and Colonel Francis Doyle, acting for
Lady Byron
Anne Isabella Noel Byron, 11th Baroness Wentworth and Baroness Byron (''née'' Milbanke; 17 May 1792 – 16 May 1860), nicknamed Annabella and commonly known as Lady Byron, was wife of poet George Gordon Byron, more commonly known as Lord Byro ...
, were waiting. Moore protested that to destroy the manuscript would be "contrary to Lord Byron's wishes and unjust to myself", but Hobhouse's and Murray's view of the matter finally prevailed and, with Moore's reluctant consent, the manuscript was torn up and burned in Murray's fireplace by Horton and Doyle. This has been called the greatest literary crime in history. Some 19th-century commentators believed that one or more copies of the Memoirs still survived and would one day emerge, and indeed that hope is still nurtured by a few, but the scholarly consensus is that the book is irrecoverably lost.
Blame
![John Cam Hobhouse](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/John_Cam_Hobhouse.jpg)
Though most of those present at the Albemarle Street meeting were in favour of the destruction of the Memoirs, Moore was vehemently opposed to it until overborne by the others; yet for many years Hobhouse kept up a campaign of public sniping against Moore, throwing the blame onto him. Moore's account of the fateful meeting at Murray's house, recorded in his diary, gave a sympathetic view of his part in the story, but when that diary was published by
Lord John Russell
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, (18 August 1792 – 28 May 1878), known by his courtesy title Lord John Russell before 1861, was a British Whig and Liberal statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1852 and ag ...
in 1853 he excised this entry, and it long remained unpublished. With only one side of the question being heard, the general feeling throughout the 19th century was that Moore was the man most responsible for the burning of the Memoirs. One note of dissent came from Moore's friend
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...
, who recorded in
his diary his opinion that Moore had been ill-treated, but as late as 1937 Moore's biographer,
L. A. G. Strong
Leonard Alfred George Strong (8 March 1896 – 17 August 1958) was a popular English novelist, critic, historian, and poet, and published under the name L. A. G. Strong. He served as a director of the publishers Methuen Ltd. from 1938 to 1958.
...
wrote, "The conclusion cannot be resisted that Moore failed his friend".
Modern scholarship assigns the blame elsewhere.
Leslie A. Marchand wrote that Hobhouse was chiefly responsible, and
Terence de Vere White
Terence de Vere White (29 April 1912 – 17 June 1994) was an Irish lawyer, writer and editor.
Life Career
Born in Dublin, de Vere White studied at Trinity College, Dublin where he qualified as a solicitor. He later became a partner in a ...
came to the same conclusion, adding that Murray was the second most guilty man.
G. Wilson Knight
George Richard Wilson Knight (1897–1985) was an English literary critic and academic, known particularly for his interpretation of mythic content in literature, and ''The Wheel of Fire'', a collection of essays on Shakespeare's plays. He was a ...
brought in a verdict against Hobhouse, Colonel Doyle, Wilmot Horton and Murray as being jointly responsible, with the rider that "behind it all...was Lady Byron". Paul Douglass believes that some blame must also go to Byron himself, in that he was too careless of his Memoirs' fate, and certainly Byron did allow them to fall into the hands of John Murray, whom he considered "the most timorous of God's booksellers".
Contents
In the absence of any surviving manuscript of the Memoirs, the only direct evidence for the nature of their contents comes from comments by Byron himself, and by such friends of Moore, Murray and Byron as were allowed to read it. These readers included
Lady Burghersh,
Lady Davy,
Lord
Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or ar ...
and
Lady Holland, Richard Hoppner,
Washington Irving
Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and " The Legen ...
,
Lady Jersey, Lord Kinnaird and his brother
Douglas
Douglas may refer to:
People
* Douglas (given name)
* Douglas (surname)
Animals
*Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking
*Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civil W ...
, Henry Luttrell, Lady Mildmay, Lord Rancliffe, Lord John Russell, William Gifford,
William Maginn
William Maginn (10 July 1794 – 21 August 1842) was an Irish journalist and writer.
About
Born at Cork he became a contributor to ''Blackwood's Magazine'', and after moving to London in 1824 became for a few months in 1826 the Paris correspond ...
,
Lady Caroline Lamb
Lady Caroline Lamb (née Ponsonby; 13 November 1785 – 25 January 1828) was an Anglo-Irish aristocrat and novelist, best known for ''Glenarvon'', a Gothic novel. In 1812 she had an affair with Lord Byron, whom she described as "mad, bad, and ...
,
Mary Shelley
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic fiction, Gothic novel ''Frankenstein, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an History of scie ...
,
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 17928 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achie ...
(probably),
John William Polidori
John William Polidori (7 September 1795 – 24 August 1821) was a British writer and physician. He is known for his associations with the Romantic movement and credited by some as the creator of the vampire genre of fantasy
Fantasy is a ...
(probably),
Samuel Rogers
Samuel Rogers (30 July 1763 – 18 December 1855) was an English poet, during his lifetime one of the most celebrated, although his fame has long since been eclipsed by his Romantic colleagues and friends Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron. His ...
(possibly), and two copyists employed by Moore called Williams and Dumoulin. Byron offered his estranged wife the chance to read the Memoirs, but she refused to have anything to do with it.
Byron wrote to Murray about the first part of the Memoirs, which ended at the year 1816, that
The ''Life'' is ''Memoranda'' and not ''Confessions''. I have left out all my ''loves'' (except in a general way), and many other of the most important things (because I must not compromise other people)...But you will find many opinions, and some fun, with a detailed account of my marriage and its consequences, as true as a party concerned can make such accounts, for I suppose we are all prejudiced.
His friend
Thomas Medwin
Thomas Medwin (20 March 1788 –2 August 1869) was an early 19th-century English writer, poet and translator. He is known chiefly for his biography of his cousin, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and for published recollections of his friend, Lord Byron.
...
later reported that Byron had told him about the second part that it
will prove a good lesson to young men; for it treats of the irregular life I led at one period, and the fatal consequences of dissipation. There are few parts that may not, and none that will not, be read by women...When you read my Memoirs you will learn the evils, moral and physical, of true dissipation. I can assure you my life is very entertaining and very instructive.
Thomas Moore also drew a distinction between the two parts. The first part contained "little unfit for publication", and "on the mysterious cause of the separation
rom his wife at the beginning of 1816it afforded no light whatever"; but as for the second part, "some of its details could never have been published at all". Privately, Moore told Hobhouse that "the first part of the Memoirs contained nothing objectionable except one anecdote – namely that Lord B. ''had'' Lady B. on the sofa before dinner on the day of their marriage." On the other hand, "The second part contained all sorts of erotic adventures". When he came to write his ''Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: With Notices of His Life'' (1830), Moore silently incorporated all the incidents he could remember relating to Byron's early London life from the Memoirs, or at any rate all he considered fit to print.
The disparity between the first and second parts may help to explain the very wide range of opinions from the other witnesses. Byron's discarded lover Lady Caroline Lamb thought the Memoirs "were of no value – a mere copy-book", and Lady Burghersh is reported to have said that she found them so unobjectionable that she would have allowed her 15-year-old daughter to read them. Lord Holland thought "some of them were agreeable enough". Lord John Russell had read the greater part of the MS. His memory was that "three or four pages of it were too gross and indelicate for publication...the rest, with few exceptions, contained little traces of Lord Byron's genius, and no interesting details of his life. His early youth in Greece, and his sensibility to the scenes around him, when resting on a rock in the swimming excursions he took from the
Piraeus
Piraeus ( ; el, Πειραιάς ; grc, Πειραιεύς ) is a port city within the Athens urban area ("Greater Athens"), in the Attica region of Greece. It is located southwest of Athens' city centre, along the east coast of the Saronic ...
, were strikingly described. But, on the whole, the world is no loser by the sacrifice made of the Memoirs of this great poet." Another detail comes from Samuel Rogers, who claimed to have read in the Memoirs that "on his marriage-night, Byron suddenly started out of his first sleep; a taper, which burned in the room, was casting a ruddy glare through the crimson curtains of the bed; and he could not help exclaiming, in a voice so loud that he wakened Lady B., 'Good God, I am surely in hell!'". Lord Rancliffe thought they were "of a low,
pot-house description". William Gifford, the editor of the ''
Quarterly Review
The ''Quarterly Review'' was a literary and political periodical founded in March 1809 by London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River ...
'', read the manuscript for Murray and reported to him, according to Hobhouse, that "the whole Memoirs were fit only for a brothel and would damn Lord B. to everlasting infamy if published." However, Gifford had held the same opinion of Byron's ''
Don Juan
Don Juan (), also known as Don Giovanni (Italian), is a legendary, fictional Spanish libertine who devotes his life to seducing women. Famous versions of the story include a 17th-century play, '' El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra'' ...
'', which was nevertheless published in Byron's lifetime.
Legacy
![Thomas Moore, after Thomas Lawrence](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Thomas_Moore%2C_after_Thomas_Lawrence.jpg)
Though the Memoirs themselves were destroyed, they, and the story of their destruction, inspired a number of responses. Thomas Moore wrote, ostensibly in Venice at the time he received the manuscript from Byron, a poem describing his feelings when about to read the Memoirs. He reflects,
Let me, a moment, think what thousands live
O'er the wide earth this instant, who would give
Gladly, whole sleepless nights to bend the brow,
Over these precious leaves, as I do now.
In July 1824 the journalist
Theodore Hook
Theodore Edward Hook (22 September 1788 – 24 August 1841) was an English man of letters and composer and briefly a civil servant in Mauritius. He is best known for his practical jokes, particularly the Berners Street hoax in 1809. The wo ...
published what purported to be an extract from the Memoirs describing Byron's wedding night. It was certainly a forgery since it was in several respects inconsistent with what we know of Byron's marriage, but it was widely credited at the time.
In, perhaps, 1842 a poem in defence of homosexuality, called ''Don Leon'', was published under Byron's name. The poem claimed to be "Part of the Private Journal of his Lordship, supposed to have been entirely destroyed by Thos. Moore", but its authenticity can be judged by the fact that it makes reference to events that happened after Byron's death. The date of composition, the date of first publication, and the real author's name are all shrouded in uncertainty.
Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclassic ...
's third and last opera ''
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...
'' (1972), to a libretto by
Jack Larson
Jack Edward Larson (February 8, 1928 – September 20, 2015) was an American actor, librettist, screenwriter and producer best known for his portrayal of photographer/cub reporter Jimmy Olsen on the television series '' Adventures of Superm ...
, stages a fictionalized version of the return of Byron's body to England in 1824; the Memoirs accompany the body, and are in the final act burned in
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...
. The opera has achieved popularity neither in its original form nor in an early 1980s abridged version.
There followed two novels in the form of imaginative recreations of the Memoirs. The first, ''The Secret Memoirs of Lord Byron'' by
Christopher Nicole
Christopher Robin Nicole (born 7 December 1930) is a prolific British writer of over 200 novels and non-fiction books since 1957. He has written as Christopher Nicole and also under several pseudonyms including Peter Grange, Andrew York, Robin ...
(1978), was according to ''
Kirkus Reviews
''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...
'' characterized by "erratic wit, hearty research, and excessive palaver about matters sexual".
Robert Nye
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...
's ''The Memoirs of Lord Byron'' (1989) was praised by the literary scholar
Daniel S. Burt
Daniel S. Burt is an American author and literary critic.
Career
Daniel S. Burt, PhD received his doctorate in English and American Literature with a specialization in Victorian fiction from New York University. He taught undergraduate- and ...
for its "remarkable impersonation of Byron's voice and psychological insight into his genius", and by
Andrew Sinclair
Andrew Annandale Sinclair FRSL FRSA (21 January 1935 – 30 May 2019) was a British novelist, historian, biographer, critic, filmmaker, and a publisher of classic and modern film scripts. He has been described as a "writer of extraordinary flu ...
in ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' for its "cascade of epigrams tumbling one after the other".
Finally, in 1995
Tom Holland
Thomas Stanley Holland (born 1 June 1996) is an English actor. His accolades include a British Academy Film Award, three Saturn Awards, a Guinness World Record and an appearance on the ''Forbes'' 30 Under 30 Europe list. Some publications h ...
published ''The Vampyre, Being the True Pilgrimage of George Gordon, Sixth Lord Byron'' (US title: ''Lord of the Dead: The Secret History of Lord Byron''). In this novel a search for the Memoirs results in the discovery that they were destroyed because they revealed that Byron was, and indeed is, a vampire.
Patt Morrison
Patt Morrison is a journalist, author, and radio-television personality based in Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles and Southern California.
Media
Morrison is a writer for the ''Los Angeles Times'', with the weekly '' 'Patt Morrison Asks' '' ...
applauded the book in the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'', but ''Kirkus Reviews'' wrote of its "attractive figures in living pasteboard", and would only concede that "as a genre work, this is better than many".
Footnotes
References
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{{Lord Byron
1818 non-fiction books
1819 non-fiction books
1820 non-fiction books
1821 non-fiction books
British autobiographies
Literary memoirs
Lost books
Unpublished books
Memoirs
A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobiog ...