Product Description

The quintessential Romantic, Lord Byron produced some of the most daring poetry of his time, collected here in this revised edition—the only widely available selection to include his own notes on the same page as the poetry.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #232874 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 864 pages

About the Author
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824) gained a reputation for his good looks and extravagant behavior and became instantly famous when his poems were first published.

Susan J. Wolfson is professor of English at Princeton University.

Peter J. Manning is chair and professor of English at SUNY Stony Brook.

Customer Reviews

Byron at his best . . .
A legend in his own lifetime, Lord Byron stamped contemporary Western culture with the mark of his dark imagination, and his poetry has lost none of its iconoclastic power today. Without a doubt, this is the finest single-volume edition of Byron currently available. By omitting the rambling satirical romp "Don Juan" (widely available separately), editors Wolfson and Manning leave themselves enough space to provide a truly representative selection of Byron's greatest works. Jerome McGann's "Oxford Authors" volume is a strong competitor, and benefits from superior notes, but only this Penguin collection offers unabridged texts of the three Oriental Tales with which Byron followed "The Giaour"--"The Bride of Abydos," "The Corsair," and "Lara"--all of which are thrilling narratives, and indispensable for tracing the development of that towering figure of English Romanticism, the Byronic Hero. Thus, this edition presents (for the first time in one volume) a complete portrait of the Byronic Hero in his many guises, from vampire ("The Giaour") to pirate ("The Corsair") to necromancer ("Manfred") to fallen angel ("Cain"). Furthermore, Wolfson and Manning supply the complete text of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" (the work that established Byron's reputation in his own lifetime), along with many other rousing verse romances, including "The Siege of Corinth," "The Prisoner of Chillon," and "Mazeppa," as well as a generous selection of Byron's most arresting shorter poems, such as "The Destruction of Sennacherib," "Promethus," and the nightmarish, end-of-the-world fantasy, "Darkness." Fans of Byron's ironic mode will welcome the inclusion of three of his satirical works; however, the strength of this volume rests on the fact that it presents Byron at his most Byronic. These are his most sublime creations--the works that defined the Romantic movement--and to read them is to discover anew why he is still ranked, throughout the world, as the greatest English-language writer after Shakespeare.

The romantic soul
Lord Byron has been a staple in the literary community, to romantasists to poets alike. This work is a real treasure and will continue to inspire and challenge generations of readers now and for ones to come.