Lord Byron Selected Writings

This volume in the 21st Century Oxford Authors series offers readers a generous selection of the poetry upon which Byron's fame depended and his reputation now rests. It presents the poems in the chronological order in which they were published, working in almost every case from their first appearances in print.

The Selected Writings include the entirety of Byron's two best-known works, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan, but the decision to work book-by-book means that they are presented not as unified works but as evolving serial publications, interspersed with other works published between installments or sequels. Alongside these two major works, wider representation is given to Byron's lyric poetry than has been typical in modern editions. Furthermore, in keeping with the 21st Century Oxford Authors series, the works are reproduced in something close to their original printed forms. Prioritizing the event of publication over that of composition, this volume offers a version of Byron close to how he would have been known to his original public. With extensive annotations, it emphasizes the social processes by which literary works come to exist in the world, particularly their publication and reception histories. The result is a fresh view of Byron's literary achievement and an impetus to further reading in the works of this extraordinary creative figure.

Jonathan Sachs, Professor of English, Concordia University,Andrew Stauffer, Professor of English, University of Virginia

Jonathan Sachs is Professor of English at Concordia University, Montreal. He is the author of The Poetics of Decline in British Romanticism (Cambridge, 2018), Romantic Antiquity: Rome in the British Imagination, 1789-1832 (Oxford, 2010), and, with the Multigraph Collective, Interacting with Print: Elements of Reading in the Era of Print Saturation (Chicago, 2018). He has held fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the National Humanities Center.


Andrew Stauffer is Professor of English at the University of Virginia, where he specializes in Romanticism, book history, and nineteenth-century poetry. He is the author of Book Traces: Nineteenth-Century Readers and the Future of the Library (Philadelphia, 2021) and Anger, Revolution, and Romanticism (Cambridge, 2005). His research has been supported by grants from the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and he has held fellowships from the ACLS, NEH, and the Advanced Research Collaborative at the CUNY Graduate Center. Since 2013, he has served as the President of the Byron Society of America.

From FUGITIVE PIECES (1806)
On Leaving Newstead
To Maria--------
Epitaph on a Beloved Friend
To Mary
['When, to their airy hall, my fathers' voice']
On a Distant View of the Village and School of Harrow on the Hill. 1806
To Mary, On Receiving her Picture
The Cornelian
From HOURS OF IDLENESS (1807)
Lachin Y. Gair
To ------- ['Oh! had my Fate been joined with thine']
'Stanzas to Jessy'
Letter to Elizabeth Bridget Pigot, 2 August 1807, London
From POEMS ORIGINAL AND TRANSLATED
Song ['When I rov'd, a young Highlander, o'er the dark heath']
Stanzas ['I would I were a careless child']
From IMITATIONS AND TRANSLATIONS (1809)
Inscription on the Monument of a Favourite Dog
To *********************** ['Well! thou art happy, and I feel']
A Love Song. To ********* ['Remind me not, remind me not']
To the Same ['And wilt thou weep when I am low?']
Stanzas to ******** on Leaving England
Letter to Mrs. Catherine Gordon Byron, Constantinople, 28 June 1810
'An Ode to the Framers of the Frame Bill'
From CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE, A ROMAUNT: AND OTHER POEMS (1812)
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, A Romaunt [Cantos I and II]
Written in an Album
Stanzas ['Chill and mirk is the nightly blast']
Written after swimming from Sestos to Abydos. May 9, 1810
Song. Zoe mou, sas agapo. Athens, 1810 ['Maid of Athens, ere we part']
Written Beneath a Picture
To Thyrza ['Without a stone to mark the spot']
To Thyrza ['One struggle more and I am free']
Letter to Lady Caroline Lamb, 29 April 1813
Letter to Annabella Milbanke, 6 September 1813
Letter to Lady Melbourne, 8 October 1813
The Giaour (1813; 7th edition)
Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte (1814; 3rd edition)
From HEBREW MELODIES (1815)
She Walks in Beauty
My Soul is Dark
Sun of the Sleepless!
The Destruction of Sennacherib
Letter to Lady Byron, 8 February 1816
From POEMS (1816)
Stanzas ['Bright by the place of thy soul']
When We Two Parted
Stanzas for Music ['There be none of Beauty's daughters']
Fare Thee Well!
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto the Third (1816)
From BYRON'S ALPINE JOURNAL (17-29 September 1816)
From THE PRISONER OF CHILLON AND OTHER POEMS (1816)
Stanzas to -------- ['Though the day of my destiny's over']
Darkness
Churchill's Grave
The Dream
Prometheus
Letter to Augusta Leigh, 8 September 1816, Villa Diodati
Manfred, A Dramatic Poem (1817)
Letter to Thomas Moore, 28 January 1817, Venice
Letter to Thomas Moore, Venice, 28 February 1817 ['So we'll go no more a-roving']
Letter to John Murray, 15 September 1817, Venice
Letter to John Murray, January 8, 1818 ['My dear Mr. Murray']
Beppo, A Venetian Story (1818; 5th edition)
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto the Fourth (1818)
Don Juan I-II (1819)
Letter to John Cam Hobhouse and Douglas Kinnaird, 19 January 1819, Venice
Letter to Augusta Leigh, 17 May 1819, Venice
Letter to John Murray, 7 June 1819, Bologna
Letter to Douglas Kinnaird, 26 October 1819, Venice
Letter to Percy Bysshe Shelley, 26 April 1821, Ravenna
Don Juan III-V (1821)
The Vision of Judgement (1822)
Letter to August Leigh, 12 December 1822, Genoa
'Preface' to The Vision of Judgement (1823)
Letter to John Cam Hobhouse, 7 April 1823, Genoa
Don Juan VI-VIII (1823)
Don Juan IX-XI (1823)
From JOURNAL TO CEPHALONIA (19 June and 28 September 1823)
Don Juan XII-XIV (1823)
Don Juan XV-XVI (1824)
POSTHUMOUSLY PUBLISHED POEMS
To the Po -- June 1819
Stanzas ['Remember thee--remember thee!']
Messolonghi, January 22, 1824: On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year
When I Left Thy Shores, O Naxos
['I speak not--I trace not--I breathe not thy name']
Extract from an Unpublished Poem ['Could I remount the river of my years']
To Augusta ['My sister! my sweet sister! if a name']
Francesca of Rimini
['When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home']
['Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story']
['Could Love for ever']
Dedication to Don Juan [I-II]
Verses ['I watched thee when the foe was at our side']
Don Juan XVII fragment