George Gordon, Lord Byron, has gone down in history for his poetry but also for his reputation as someone 'mad, bad, and dangerous to know'. Lady Caroline Lamb, may have been referring solely to her lover when she said this, but a little investigation into his family history shows that it's an epithet that could have applied to many of his relatives as well.
At the start of the eighteenth century, Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire was home to William, 4th Baron Byron, an amateur composer and artist, and his young wife, France. The house was widely admired, the family fortunes seemed secure. But by 1798 when George inherited the title of sixth baron, the building had become a dilapidated ruin, and the fortune dissipated.
In the intervening years the family had immersed itself in seemingly one scandal after another; murder, elopement, separation and (above all) the running up of mountainous debts seemed to be almost everyday activities for the Byrons, even the daring sea-adventures of John (later vice-admiral), or the quiet, unremarkable life of Richard (who became a vicar) couldn't save the family's reputation.
Emily Brand's fascinating book follows the Byrons' ups and (more frequent) downs, their loves and squabbles, and introduces the reader to lives full of drama and excess. To be honest if they had been fictional characters they'd hardly seem believable.
The style is almost one of fictionalised biography, told on the one hand from the perspective of young George Gordon making his first acquaintance with his ancestral home and family history, and on the other charting the troubles that befell his forebears, and it's a technique which brings them to life on the page.
There's a lot to take in, especially as the family seem fond of christening children after their uncles or aunts, or even in some melancholy circumstances after a deceased sibling, but I found it an engrossing read which shed a whole new light on the poet Byron's character and heritage.
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