He led an unconventional life of extravagant spending and debts, extensive travel, love affairs and separation. Renowned for his looks, he was perhaps most famously described by one of his lovers, Lady Caroline Lamb, as ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’.

It runs from Thursday 18 April until Saturday 27 July at the National Library of Scotland, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh.īorn in London in 1788, Lord Byron spent his early years in Aberdeen before inheriting his title on the death of his great-uncle in 1798 and moving to England. The display – which includes an array of material from the Library’s collections relating to Byron, including from the John Murray Archive – explores the controversy surrounding its publication and the reactions of its readers. It is a special moment to share these manuscripts, in all their raw and immediate detail, with the public.” The Byron papers in the National Library are a rich and unique research resource and we are proud to be one of the leading centres for the study of Byron’s life and work. “We have been collecting Byron’s work for the past 30 or 40 years. It was deliberately provocative, but his intent was to expose the hypocrisies of British society as much as it was to shock readers with depictions of war, slave markets, harems, and perhaps most famously, the protagonist’s litany of love affairs.

The epic poem was before its time and he knew it. “Lord Byron was at the height of his powers when he penned Don Juan. As was Byron’s mischievous wont, he also mocked religions and ridiculed fellow poets and public figures.įor the first time, people will have the opportunity to view the working manuscripts of Don Juan on display – specifically cantos I, II and V – which show changes and additions made by the poet, giving an insight into his creative process. His account of the adventures of Don Juan is famous for its exotic locations, adventure, romance, wit and dazzling language. Often lauded as the first-ever ‘celebrity’, Byron’s private life was already attracting scandal and gossip at the time of writing the first cantos of Don Juan. A long poem divided into sections known as cantos, it was unfinished at the time of his death in 1824. The manuscript of one of the greatest poems of the 19 th century – Lord Byron’s Don Juan – will go on display at the National Library of Scotland from next Thursday (18 April) to mark the 200 th anniversary of its publication.ĭon Juan is widely regarded as Byron’s masterpiece and led Sir Walter Scott to make comparisons with Shakespeare.

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