The epitome of the romantic literary hero, Lord Byron was as well known in his time for the revolutionary panache with which he lived as for his extremely popular verse. “As a myth,” wrote Bertrand Russell, “his importance, especially on the continent, was enormous.” His many tempestuous relationships were the subject of scandal which only added to his celebrity. His name has even entered into our language to describe a man of deep passion...

This volume of the Freshwater Seas Lord Byron set consists of 54 poems written during the years 1809-1816. Many were included in various editions of longer works, particularly the 1812 and later editions of Childe Harold; others were published in various newspapers and periodicals, especially the Morning Chronicle; a few were not published until after the author's death, sometimes long after. The mood is as varied as were the occasions of the compositions....

As in the first two volumes of this series, our interest in these poems is not so much the poetry itself as the promise of what is to come. In these poems, mostly written in the years just before Byron left England to tour in Europe, it is fascinating to see how his power as a poet is constantly growing and to see how his enormously romantic heart and soul goes about fashioning itself. He is on the brink of the experiences that will lead to his major...

In this, the fourth volume of this series, we hear the poetry in which Byron began to make his mark on the world. Though his major breakthrough with Childe Harold is yet to come, his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers was a definite hit in its time, establishing Byron as a known poet and ensuring that his reputation as a literary bad-boy was off to a good start. English Bards and Scotch Reviewers was his first major satire and one of his most effective;...

We hope you will enjoy these fine, old-fashioned stories that Lord Byron wrote in an old-fashioned way. He tells these tales in rhyming verse and heroic couplets, and he makes them dashing, romantic, and even melodramatic in a way that has become foreign to us with the passing of time. These are tales of the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish empire that, in Lord Byron's day, encompassed what we now know as the Middle East from Iran to Morocco, the modern...

Excerpt: "Fugitive Pieces, Byron's first volume of verse, was privately printed in the autumn of 1806, when Byron was eighteen years of age. Passages in Byron's correspondence indicate that as early as August of that year some of the poems were in the printers' hands and that during the latter part of August and during September the printing was suspended in order that Byron might give his poems an "entire new form." The new form consisted, in part,...

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812-1818) is a book length poem by British Romantic Lord Byron. Published in cantos, the narrative poem is arranged in four parts, each following the journey of Harold, a character based on Byron himself. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage established Byron's reputation as a leading poet of his era, laying the foundation for many of the elements of Romantic poetry-melancholy, sublime and beautiful landscapes, and a wandering hero-that...

Manfred, a Faustian noble, is tortured by guilt over the death of his beloved, Astarte. He uses his mastery of language and spell-casting to summon seven spirits, from whom he seeks forgetfulness. The spirits are unable to control the past and thus cannot grant Manfred's plea.

Extrait : "On sait, ou du moins on doit savoir, que dans tous les pays catholiques, quelques semaines avant le mardi-gras, la population s'en donne à cœur joie ; on achète le repentir avant de se faire dévot ; et, sans distinction de rang ou d'état, chacun appelle à son aide le violon, la bonne chère, la danse, le vin, les masques, et autres choses qu'on peut avoir en les demandant." À PROPOS DES ÉDITIONS LIGARAN : Les éditions LIGARAN...

Extrait : "Aucun souffle ne vient briser la vague qui roule au-dessous de ce tombeau, qui brillant au sommet du rocher, frappe le premier les regards du nautonier à son retour dans sa patrie. Là repose cet Athénien qui vainement sauva son pays : quand verrons-nous revivre un héros tel que lui ? "