For the first time all Byron's miscellaneous prose writings are collected together, including his speeches in the House of Lords, short stories, reviews, critical articles, and Armenian translations, as well as such shorter pieces as memoranda, notes, reminiscences, and marginalia. Although some of this material has been published before - most notably in the appendices to Prothero's edition of the Letters and Journals (1898-1901) - a considerable proportion is here published for the first time. For the first time too, the prose works are presented with full scholarly apparatus. The texts are reproduced from their original manuscripts wherever these are still extant; and the notes provide an introduction to each item, detailing the circumstances of its composition, its publication history, and its historical and literary background, as well as providing comprehensive annotation of individual points of obscurity, allusions, and other matters of content.

This volume completes the Oxford English Texts edition of Byron's Poetical Works. Included here are the poems from the last two years of Byron's life, 1823-4, when he decided to leave Italy to join the Greeks in their struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire. Three major works date from this period - the neglected late satire, The Age of Bronze; Byron's treatment of the Bounty mutiny, The Island; and his greatest lyric poem, `January 22nd 1824. Messalonghi. On this day I complete my thirty-sixth year.'

An important feature of this volume is its set of appendices dealing with the corpus of Byron's work. Of special signficance are those detailing all relevant information about attributed and spurious Byron poems. This material is important not only for establishing a reliable corpus of the work, but also as a fundamental resource for the study of the Byron legend.

This volume also contains comprehensive indexes of titles, of first lines, and of all the poems by volume and page number, and a general index.

Byron was a legend in his own lifetime and the dominant influence on the Romantic movement. The most European of the English writers in an age of revolution, Byron was deeply involved in contemporary events, and a passionate supporter of the struggle for Greek independence. Describing himself as `born for opposition', his work was largely directed against what he called the `cant political, cant poetical, and cant moral' of the English and European worlds. He was rocketed to fame by the publication of Childe Harold in 1812, and lionized by society until his departure from England amid a whirlpool of private gossip and newspaper scandal in 1816. His is, in every sense, a poetry of experience, and a Romantic emphasis on the personality of the poet is the hallmark of all his verse. Relishing humour and irony, daring and flamboyant, sardonic yet idealistic, his work encompasses a sweeping range of topics, subjects, and models, embracing the most traditional and the most experimental poetic forms. This selection of the poetical works, chosen from the Oxford Authors critical edition, includes such masterpieces as The Corsair, Manfred, Bebbo, and Don Juan. There are many other less familiar works and shorter lyrics, and Jerome J. McGann's introduction and notes give fascinating insight into Byron's world. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

This authoritative edition was originally published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the general editorship of Frank Kermode. It brings together a unique combination of Byron's poetry and prose - all the major poems, complemented by important letters, journals, and conversations - to give the essence of his work and thinking. Byron is regarded today as the ultimate Romantic, whose name has entered the language to describe a man of brooding passion. Although his private life shocked his contemporaries his poetry was immensely popular and influential, especially in Europe. This comprehensive edition includes the complete texts of his two poetic masterpieces Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan, as well as the dramatic poems Manfred and Cain. There are many other shorter poems and part of the satire English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. In addition there is a selection from Byron's inimitable letters, extracts from his journals and conversations, as well as more formal writings. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

NB - VOL VII HAS THE BLURB FOR BOTH VOLS - ELSP89 This volume is the penultimate one in the Oxford English Texts Byron, described by Ian Jack as 'one of the finest editions we have of any of the Romantic poets'. It contains all the works of 1821 and 1822, including all Byron's late plays - The Two Foscari, Sardanapalus, Cair: A Mystery, (publication of which gave rise to threats of prosecution against the publisher, John Murray), and the unfinished The Deformed Transformed. As usual, the works are given with textual annotation at the foot of the page, and there is a full introdution and extensive annotation at the end of the volume.

Volume IV of this edition of Byron's poetical works covers the period from the middle of 1816, when Byron left England, to the end of 1820. During this first phase of his exile years he wrote some of his most important and innovative work, including Manfred, Beppo, Mazeppa, and the Morgante Maggiore. These were the works, and this was the period, in which Byron moved toward the project that was to become his masterwork, Don Juan. Seventy-one poems are included in this volume, of which ten are collected in complete form for the first time. In addition, a large number of the poems have heretofore been printed in corrupted or non-authoritative texts, many of them among Byron's most well-known works such as Manfred and "To the Po". The texts are based on a return to, and a systematic analysis of, all the early textual documents, including all known manuscripts, proofs, and early editions. Copious notes and commentaries supplement the editorial apparatus, so that the entire context of these works--textual, biographical, social, historical--is elucidated as it has never been in any previous edition.

Byron is situated between Milton, whose suffering Satan retained more than a hint of nobility even though God's ways were supposedly justified, and Nietzsche's ubermench who in suffering the laughter of rejection and the pain of alienated righteousness, destroys the old gods and brings in the new. Byron's duality is couched within a will to do and the weakness to do not - always with the hanging question, does either path really matter? This conflict keeps Byron's humanity locked, like Pascal's paradoxical pronouncement, in "a mid-point between nothing and everything." Pope could assert in the 18th century that "Man was created half to rise and half to fall," while Byron had to struggle with if humanity was created at all, and by whom, and for what purpose? The most distilled revelation of this conflicted search for meaning within, and behind, the human condition comes in Byron's confessional narrative Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812-1819). In this aspiring epic, Byron presents the Visionary's "compulsive search for an ideal and a perfection that do es] not exist in the world of reality...the unquenchable thirst for ideality and the dissatisfaction with reality."

A quintessential depiction of the Byronic hero, Byron's poetic drama Manfred centers on the interior sufferings of its psychologically tortured title character, who is haunted by the death of his forbidden lover. A radically autonomous figure, Manfred rejects help from other human beings, refuses Christian absolution, and disdains dark supernatural entities far more powerful than he is. Despite (or perhaps in part also because of) scandalous associations between the work and Byron's own tumultuous personal life, it was a considerable success from the start-and soon became far more than merely successful; Manfred exerted a powerful shaping force on the Romantic sensibility for decades after Byron's death. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature edition of Manfred is accompanied by a substantial selection of contextual materials including Byron's original draft of the play's conclusion; influences on the poem, such as Paradise Lost, Goethe's Faust, and Vathek; examples of the Byronic hero from the poet's other writings; a selection of contemporary reviews; and an excerpt from Man-Fred, a dramatic parody in which the protagonist is reimagined as a chimney-sweep.