Lord Byron
Famously described by his maitresse Caroline Lamb as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know” – in the 1990’s famously invoked by Dylan McKay, who we hoped would be all these things too but ultimately only shared LB’s reckless disregard for money and ended up in Dockers like everyone else – LB was a creature of great beauty, not stocky and club footed. He seduced and laid waste to half the women and men of the period (he was ahead of his time in that he drove his jilted lover Lady Lamb to anorexia). He did everything: ran a newspaper with Shelley, was leader of an Italian Carbonari, was a hero to Greece and to the entire English speaking world. He loathed Wordsworth and loved his dog so much that after the poor thing contracted rabies, his master nursed him in his arms, unconcerned for his own safety. Don Juan was his epic yet still massively underrated and under read. He had violent mood swings, and like all worthwhile people, suffered from debilitating depression. He was so cool he put himself into exile. Had he not died from the common cold, he would have been King of Greece. The Greeks loved him so, they kept his lungs in an urn. Â
Recommended reading: The Island, The Prisoner of Chillon, Heaven and Earth, Maid of Athens, Manfred, Darkness.
