Product Description

They were the Romantic generation, famous and infamous, and in their short, extraordinary lives, they left a legacy of glamorous and often shocking legend. In PASSION the interwoven lives and vivid personalities of Byron, Shelley and Keats are explored through the eyes of the women who knew and loved them -- scandalously, intensely and sometimes tragically. From the salons of the Whig nobles and the penury and vitality of Grub Street, to the beauty and corruption of Venice and the carrion field of Waterloo, PASSION presents the Romantic generation in a new and dramatic light -- actors in a stormy history that unleashed the energies of the modern world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1509135 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 672 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The attempted suicide of Mary Wollstonecraft opens this carefully researched, deeply imagined and gorgeously written novel about the Romantic poets, as seen by the women who loved them: Mary Wollstonecraft's daughter, Mary Shelley, who fell scandalously in love with then-married Percy Bysshe Shelley and wrote Frankenstein at age 19; the passionate but untethered Lady Caroline Lamb, who never got over her love for Lord Byron; charming Fanny Brawne, devoted to her consumptive fiancé, Keats; and Augusta Leigh, half-sister to Byron, notorious for her incestuous affair with him. Dense, empathetic, detailed portraits of each woman lift them above their iconography; even Byron, in all his famous charm, is convincingly rendered. The poets, of course, are doomed—Byron, fighting in the Greek war of independence, dies of fever; Shelley perishes in a boating accident; and Keats succumbs to consumption. Morgan concludes with a series of carefully crafted plateaus that evocatively capture the women in varied states of acceptance, ambivalence and longing after their losses. Augusta, whose appealing calm and optimism is all the more paradoxical in light of her taboo-shattering decision to sleep with her half-brother, Byron, makes for a particularly fascinating character study. Mary Shelley, clear-eyed, solemn and terribly intelligent, also emerges as three-dimensional and compelling. Morgan (The King's Touch) brings a fascinating past to brilliant light. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School This fictionalized biography begins with the suicide attempt of Mary Wollstonecraft, early feminist and mother of the famed author of Frankenstein. The other women who are the center of the work include Mary Shelley née Godwin (Percy Shelley's lover, then wife), Lady Caroline Lamb (Lord Byron's lover), Fanny Brawne (John Keats's lover), Claire Clairemont (Mary Shelley's half-sister and Byron's lover), and Augusta Leigh (Byron's half-sister and lover). The poets are accompanied by many assorted celebrities and famous hangers-on. The interactions include incest, infidelity, children born out of wedlock, and any and all kinds of tragedy and scandal. This may sound like a rather high-toned soap opera, but the language and the situations that Morgan imagines transform and transcend the characters' actions. The portrayals are vivid, fascinating, and utterly realistic. Events move seamlessly by way of tightly packed prose and insightful detail about these interwoven lives. Teens will be intrigued by what intelligent and strong women were doing in the early 19th century in fact, Passion may inspire a quest to learn more about the Romantic poets and the short but uniquely creative span of English literature in which they lived. Jane Halsall, McHenry Public Library District, IL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Although subtitled A Novel of the Romantic Poets, Morgan's vivid re-creation of the extraordinary lives of Byron, Shelley, and Keats has as much to do with the women who loved them as with the experiences of these literary and political revolutionaries. Unfolding through a prism of ardent emotions, the individual and collective stories of this infamous triumvirate are told through the eyes of the notorious Lady Caroline Lamb, Lord Byron's besotted lover; the intelligent and talented Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley's bluestocking wife and the author of Frankenstein; the virtually anonymous Fanny Brawne, the inspiration for many of Keats' poems and the subject of his famous letters; and the scandalous Augusta Leigh, Byron' s half sister and forbidden love interest. By interweaving these fictional biographies, the author opens an intimate window to the heady world of the Romantic poets and the often-circumscribed position of women in early-nineteenth-century society. Astonishing historical fiction that vividly reflects the passions associated with an exhilarating new era in literature. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

"Don't be afraid of the world. Square up to it. Knock it down."
Focusing on the women in the lives of the romantic poets--Byron, Shelley, and Keats--rather than on the poets themselves, Jude Morgan recreates the years from 1812 - 1824, during which time Mary Godwin, Augusta Leigh, Caroline Lamb, Claire Clairmont, and Fanny Brawne fall in love, encourage the poets in some of their finest work, and ultimately, learn to cope with the poets' premature deaths. Mary Godwin, daughter of journalist/philosopher William Godwin and early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, is the linchpin of this biographical novel. Falling in love with Percy Bysshe Shelley at age sixteen, Mary defies convention by running away to the continent with Shelley when his wife refuses to grant him a divorce.

In contrast to Shelley, Lord Byron has many lovers. Augusta Leigh, his half-sister and the wife of George Leigh, is terrified that her feelings for Byron will become public. Caroline Lamb, married to William Lamb, conducts a long affair with him, pursuing him even after he marries her cousin, Annabella Milbanke (mother of his daughter Ada). Claire Clairmont, stepsister of Mary Godwin Shelley, becomes his lover in Italy and the mother of another daughter, Allegra.

The story of Fanny Brawne and John Keats does not unfold until almost the end of the novel. As Keats seems not to have much direct connection with Byron and Shelley here, and as Fanny is far more conventional in personality than any of the other women, the addition of this story line feels somewhat disconnected and is not integrated into most of the action.

Author Jude Morgan recreates conversations and fleshes out the daily lives of these characters, creating scenes that are often dramatic and sometimes moving. His careful attention to detail and immense research create a full picture of the attitudes of the times, and the context in which these women lived. With five female characters, however, he sometimes changes focus unexpectedly, and the reader must pay careful attention to detail to figure out who is who in the changing scenes. Occasionally even the point of view changes unexpectedly--from the third person to first person.

For those interested in the romantic poets, Morgan's novel offers many new insights and fascinating glimpses of early nineteenth century life, as romanticism emerges from the neoclassicism of the past. He assumes, however, that the reader will bring some knowledge of the poets and their works to the novel, spending little time discussing the works themselves, and concentrating on relationships instead. Mary Shelley, Augusta Leigh, Caroline Lamb, and Claire Clairmont, all early feminists, flout convention and sacrifice all for love, often behaving more romantically than the poets. Carefully researched, Passion offers fascinating information within an uneven narrative structure. n Mary Whipple

Interesting and sometimes compelling
This is a very good novel about the great poets of the Regency years - Byron, Shelley and Keats, and told from a very different perspective - that of the women from different walks of life and social standings, and who loved them. Some are quite famous in their own right (we have "Frankenstein" thanks to Mary Shelley), some, like Lady Caroline Lamb were considered quite scandalous, others lived far less prominent lives.

However, it is not a novel without flaws. There is quite a bit of focus on Fanny Brawne, who loved Keats, and yet that great poet doesn't enter the picture till quite late in the novel, and only briefly. Sometimes the novel can be seen as a little disjointed - some chapters chop and change between the characters and you have read some way before you realise who we are reading about.

And yet there are times when it is a beautiful book, and you feel quite drawn into the loves and lives of these beautiful and ultimately doomed people.

This is not a romantic novel by any stretch of the imagination, and indeed it seems there was very little romance in the loves of these great poets. But they certainly had strong women, and it is these women, and how they coped with the places in history, that makes it a good read.

As a spin off, it would be good to have a volume of poetry handy - I found that I wanted to look at Byron's "Childe Harold" on more than one occasion!

Romantics Brought to Life
Although this is an imperfect novel, Jude Morgan has done an amazing job of bringing the three great Romantic poets, Byron, Shelley and Keats, to life. I have studied their biographies and works extensively, and was happily surprised by the accuracy with which they are portrayed in this book. The invented dialogue, especially that of Byron, enlivens the book and makes it more compelling than a conventional biography. Yes, the book is choppy and sometimes hard to follow, and it is not structurally sound. But the characters are always interesting, and I wanted to keep on reading because of the inherent drama of the stories and the period. What I disliked from the beginning was the odd sentence structure and incessant use of colons after a single word at the beginning of sentences. That's the English teacher in me wishing for clarity and correctness. However, overall the book is a masterpiece of presentation of thrillingly unique characters in an age of romantic idealism.

Helen Bennett